


The Third Estate

by fliuor



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 61,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fliuor/pseuds/fliuor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the night of 28th June 1785, a young soldier comes back home alone with an empty bottle and a bruised honour; a ruined baker strays through the streets of Paris to escape from the flames that destroyed his life. In secret, the Palais-Royal opens its doors to a small group of political activists named the Jacobins, while in Boulogne-Sur-Seine, a peer of the aristocracy awaits sleeplessly in front of his chimney fire, for the return of a letter that will never arrive. The next morning, a slaughtered corpse is found floating over the river Seine.</p><p>28th June 1875. </p><p>The fates of five drastically different men have become strangely entwined; marking the start of an uncanny bond that will light those individuals’ paths through the bloodstained intrigues of the French Revolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

Most arts have produced miracles, but the art of government has produced nothing but monsters.

 

-          Louis-Antoine Saint-Just (April 24, 1793)

**\- THE THIRD ESTATE-**

On the night of June 28th 1785, citizen Ohno Satoshi lost everything he possessed to the flames of a criminal fire.

 

He was a placid man, Ohno Satoshi. Of humble origins, he had worked all his life as a baker; and being a baker in suburban Paris had always had its distinctive perks. It was a job of which one could be proud: while every French citizen needed to scrape the floor for a crumb of bread to survive, he – by virtue of his profession – had consistently been able to obtain a loaf or two to feed his family in times of needs. And in times of needs they were! They had been, it seemed, for ages now. Since the start of her reign Marie-Antoinette had tirelessly emptied the Royal funds in her extravagant lifestyle, diligently taking bread away from her people’s mouth while her husband of a King watched her deflate the wallets of France with the benevolence of a vicar. The country was crumbling under the weight of the nobility’s expense; children were reduced to stealing in almost every lower class household. People were famished outside of the nobility and the clergy, and when they were not famished, they were angry with the deadliest kind of anger imaginable. A dormant anger.  

 

But against this folly, Ohno had never complained, because he had been lucky enough to be a baker. He could provide bread all year long, albeit little, for his wife, his children, his old bed-ridden mother; and when the neighbours were lucky too, he could exchange half a loaf with them for some of their vegetables or potatoes, and make a delicious broth.

 

Ohno Satoshi never complained; it was not in his nature. On the evening of the 28th June either, he did not try to grumble or whine. He simply walked out of the house, leaving his young wife to put the children to bed while he strolled into the adjacent street to collect some vegetables. When he left, he had a dirty baguette under his arm, his old mother snoring in her sour bed, and a candle lighting the room which was their home.

 

When he came back, the loaf of bread had been replaced by some meek cabbage leaves. The window of his shop had been shattered by unrestrained barbarity and the house he loved burned to the ground, with the blood of his family leaking eerily on the pavement, bringing everything he owned into a pile of worthless ash.

 

 

 

 

 

It so happened, that while this incident took place in one end of the Parisian suburbs, another singular event was occurring at the capital’s opposite end. Near the small chapel by the Seine stood a half-finished bridge named the Pont Louis XVI, a curious structure which stretched itself on the way from the Champs-de-Mars to the Tuileries Palace. People avoided it at night by custom because the foundations there were uneven, making it awfully easy to fall head first into the river if you were not careful enough with your own steps. That night however, two figures crossed the unfinished bridge with very little consideration for obscurity. The figures were caped, painted black from head to toe, without wigs and without frills. Just two modestly garbed men of a vigour and energy that only young people were capable of; they crossed the bridge without looking at the waters below and plunged into the darkness of the smaller Parisian streets, ushering each other in whispers that could not hide their familiarity.

“Come on, now,” said the first one mockingly, “we’ll be late if we carry on with this speed, Sho. And you don’t want to be late when you’re meeting royalty.”

The named Sho pulled his cape around him and huffed, but quickened his pace all the same.

“I thought you never paid heed to royalty.”

“Of course, I don’t.” the first immediately concurred. “At three in the morning, a member of the royal family would look just as dreadful as a prisoner of the Bastille anyways... I’m saying this for you who, on the other hand, seem much more receptive than I to those issues of title,” he snorted, “you seemed _ecstatic_ when we first received news of tonight’s conference.”

“Well, the Duke’s been obliging enough to lend us his palace’s basement for the meeting. That’s rather generous for a noble, let alone the King’s cousin. Even a commoner like me has to admit that.”

“It certainly is a first in the course of history…”

“Some say that it’s because of his strained relationship with Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.”

“And others say that he’s bored and doesn’t know what to do with his palace.”

“Nino.”

“I jest.” Nino grinned and put his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Now, what I mean by this is that the motivation behind the Duke’s invitation matters very little to me. You see, Sho, my fellow Jacobin and dear companion; today we are meeting secretly in the basement of the Duke’s palace. But tomorrow, we shall be speaking from an assembly hall – It’ll be _our_ guiding voice that the people hear in the bright light of day!”

“Let’s see how things go,” Sho stopped in the middle of the street, frowning. “Hush, I hear something. Don’t you hear something? The sound came from behind us.”

“What sound?”

“I heard the sound of a weight falling in water… Something heavy it seemed; it must have been in the Seine.”

“You must be dreaming,” Nino smiled thinly, then raised his head at the sight of a shadow ahead. “Now, look; if that isn’t Camille DesMoulins in front of us… another Jacobin to walk this historical path with; what a coincidence. But of course, the more the merrier -DesMoulins! Delay your step!”

 

The man ahead of them turned around and beamed upon recognizing them. He had an odd stammer when he spoke:

“If this isn’t a surprise! I wasn’t expecting to see you two before arriving.”

“And neither were we,” Nino grinned, shaking his hand and stepping aside for Sho to do the same. “But let us go, now. I’m sure all the other invitees are already there by now, we are going to be the last ones to arrive.”

“You’re right.”

“As usual.” Nino concluded impishly. “Now, let’s go, my fellow citizens. The Palais-Royal awaits!”

 

 

 

Thus went on the night of the 28th June 1785. A night unrecorded in the written annals, but which led more than one soul into the scorching fire wheel of History. This is the unembellished tale of the third estate, and the people who have raised it, forged it into a weapon of mass destruction, bringing an entire nation up the wuthering heights of insurgent folly before falling under the weight of their own madness.

 

 

 

~*~

 

**ACT I**

 

 

In the nobility, news travelled fast. Jun Matsumoto had now personally experienced it.

 

His family belonged to the aristocracy of middle class; a specie of counts that hang onto their title through generations of a diluted lineage. The son of a noble family? Yes; but of a lesser title nonetheless, whose visits to the balls of Versailles were scarce and recognition in the royal court was petty. Their household was built in Boulogne-Sur-Seine, in the outskirts of Paris, a beautiful estate of greenery and granite that separated the Matsumotos from town by only a carriage ride. Their name was modestly known, but well-appreciated nonetheless, and since his most tender youth, Jun had always developed a broad range of friends in different classes of the nobility, friends on whom he could count and with whom he could converse in all honesty; friends who now visited him one by one to pay him their condolences; for, his fiancée, Jacqueline de Beaurivier, had been murdered a week and a half ago, on the night of the 28th June 1785.

 

 

His betrothal with the countess had been a recent thing... A decision made only in the course of the preceding year, when the lady had been preparing to leave for Finland for a long trip abroad. Their betrothal had also been a _rational_ thing. As a countess living in Paris, Jacqueline de Beauriviers had been part of the nobility who had frequent admittance to the court of Versailles, and since her family also happened to be an old friend of the Matsumoto household, their parents had always seen them as a suitable match. Out of curtsy and convention, Jun had proposed to her before her departure for Finland, and Jacqueline herself had received the offer with flushed cheeks, along with a flattered acceptance. His parents had applauded him for the move.

 

But he had not seen her since then; and now never would.

 

She was dead. She was murdered. And what people did not know, was that two weeks before the night of her unsolved death, Jun had sent her a letter written in most affected terms, asking her for the cancellation of their engagement and for forgiveness from her noble heart. He had waited for her reply with very little sleep since then, anxiously awaiting for any news from Finland; only to discover, by a strange turn of event, that somehow, the attractive wife-to-be who was supposed to have remained in Helsinki for another five months, had just been found floating in the Seine in Paris, dead, her round throat slit and her dress turned to rags.  

 

The strange news, which had found their way to the entire nobility of Paris within a few days, had left Jun pale and shaken for a full week. But now, he felt the nerve of walking into town again, of facing his friends’ commiserations, and the questioning gazes to which he had no answer. Amongst those friends, the Marquis de LaFayette came to see him first; then the Governor de Launay took a break from his post in the Prison of la Bastille to meet him in Paris.

 

Then at last he saw his old friend, the General de Villars, a joyful man of large corpulence who had been appointed as captain of the French Guard regiments, after an ugly scandal had led to his destitution from the Royal Army. Jun had not seen the French Guards’ barracks since his fifteenth birthday, but his last memory of them had been an uninspiringly simple one at best:

 _Disorder_.

This time was no different. The courtyard had been transformed into a tennis court in between drills, and the soldiers who were not hailed to train were now challenging each other in sets of heated games, laughing, hooting and running in a brilliant imitation of a children’s playground... Upon entering the arena, Jun took care in avoiding the crowd, and immediately focused his attention on two youths sitting by the armory with their ballonets dangling at their sides.

 

The men jumped to their feet as soon as he planted himself in front of them:

“What’s your business here?” one queried loudly. “Speak. Or we’ll report you to our chief.”

“Oh yes, do report me. That would be helpful.” Jun derided and gave both men a long, calm look. “What are your names, soldiers?”

The guards looked at each other uncertainly. Then eventually the first, a blond youth with freckled cheeks, quietly replied:

“My name’s Martin, sir. And this is Masaki Aiba.”  

“Very well, then. Martin.” Jun crossed his hands behind his back. “I would like to meet your superior, General de Villars; if you could please fetch him for me. Tell him that his friend Jun Matsumoto is here to see him about pressing matters. I shall be waiting in the courtyard.”

Slightly suspicious, but humbled all the same, the blond youth glanced at his friend one last time, before nodding and fleeing to find his superior in the depths of the garrison, at last. Jun thus brought his attention onto the second man, who was now studying him with an undisguised air of admiration.

A pair of guileless eyes set under two swallows that served as eyebrows, and big generous lips taking up the greater part of his face were the only distinctive features that Aiba Masaki possessed. His traits were like a forest, blurred, disheveled and wild, but gentle in nature and unpolluted by any hint of malice. The candid son of an old cobbler; such was his background and nothing more.    

 

“What pressing matters are you here to see the General ‘bout, sir?” the young man soon asked in all innocence.

The count smiled at so much candour.

“I do not believe that this is any of your concern.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Aiba flushed and lowered his head quickly. “I didn’t mean to be rude, sir. Just that things’ been all messy lately, you know; as you can see... We don’t want anyone suspect walking around.”

“And you are right in taking precautions.” Jun nodded pensively. “Paris has been very unstable lately, has it not?”

“Oh yes, very, very. Lots of crimes, lots of thefts…People have been getting into groups and assaulting nobles’ carriages, or breaking into the homes of the richer town folks."

" _Dreary_."

"Yes, sir."

"And I heard the corruption is worsening as well, in the upper classes."

"Oh, the corruption is bad, sir, even here.” Aiba scrunched his nose and shook his head. “Heard rumours of higher ups taking money from dodgy people and committing all sorts of villainies and frauds these days. I don’t mean to badmouth of course. But everything’s in a mess nowadays.”

 

Jun laughed bitterly and kicked a lonely stone into the open door of the armory. He sighed.

 

“Oh, I bet. It is becoming increasingly difficult to go out at night without fearing for one’s life.” he said. “But I heard that there were all kinds of ways for us nobles to avoid getting killed in case of dangerous encounters: Briberies, begging… a good amount of degrading behaviour which I hope that I will never have to deal with.” he smiled sourly. “I am not one to judge people. But it is a shame that one should have to abandon their own values in order to save their life.”

 

Aiba looked up at him innocently.

 

“You are right, sir. I’m glad you feel that way.”

“Why would I not?”

“I don’t know, sir. There’re more and more nobles doing dirty deals with us common folks and also the other way round nowadays… Very fishy, all that. And not very virtuous, as you say.”

“Dirty deals by nobles?” Jun frowned softly. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, not really dirty…and not really deals.” Aiba scratched his nose. “Just rumours, sir. Nothing important.”

“Well, you cannot be sure that they're unimportant, if you do not check. Could you elaborate?”

“For example...Well, I’m sure you know the Duke d’Orléans, sir? The King’s cousin? I heard he’s started using the Palais-Royal to host nocturnal meetings with odd people that call themselves Jacobins…It’s all very discreet. But sometimes, when we go out to patrol at night, we see those eerie figures, dark like crows – lawyers, teachers, writers, and doctors…all sorts! we see them coming out of the palace front gates like they own it. Can you imagine? Ordinary town folks owning the Palais-Royal! I don’t know what they talk ‘bout in there, but it can’t be good for the general order.”

Jun’s frown deepened as he took a few steps across the yard.

“I did not know about the Duke d’Orléans,” he finally said.

"It's fishy."

“It is rather curious, indeed.”

The French guard shrugged: “It’s not very forthright, all that. People doing those strange deals between classes. It’s not the way things are supposed to be.”

Surely, the sight would have been rather endearing for anyone who looked at it for a moment: The soldier’s flushed cheeks, his wild stare, his immovable conviction and frustration at the vice of the world, all reflected in those hazelnut pupils which resembled those of an untamed deer. Jun gazed at him for a second, and could not help but smile.

“I can see that you do not like disorder, Aiba.”

“Oh! I’m fine when things are a little bit messy...” the guard looked embarrassed by his own concessions, now. “I just don’t like dishonest people...But I know you’re not like those corrupted nobles, sir. I can see it from the way you walked in here and the way you talked to us. You are a good man. A noble and upright man.”

“You don’t even know me.” Jun frowned.

“Some signs do not lie.” Aiba smiled shyly. “That is what my mother always told me.”

 

Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of General de Villars, who soon ordered his subordinate to get back to his own quarters. Aiba scampered off after giving Jun a last wholehearted salute. “Goodbye, sir. I hope we can meet again soon!” Jun watched him go with innocent curiosity before finally turning towards his friend, a smile still curving his lips. He walked side by side through the courtyard with his pudgy companion, who offered him his “ _sincerest sympathies for the fiancée_ ” before anything else. That such a thing should happen, not even a year before the marriage…! A very sorry affair, to say the least.

 

“How did it happen?” the General probed inquisitively.

“I’d rather like to know myself, de Villars,” Jun replied grimly, “a few points in the affair still intrigue me.”

“But was it one of those assaults by the poor masses?” the elder man frowned. “There are more and more of those on us nobles nowadays… They’d jump on any carriage that looks good.”

“I suppose that this is the most plausible theory for now.” Jun sighed and resumed his walk. “But let us not dwell on this topic; there is enough mourning for me to do already. Pray tell me instead... How is work in the French Guards compared to the Royal Army? Are you liking your new post?”

“Do not ask! Ah, not one bit, no. Working with those rascals is a nightmare."

Jun smiled.

"How so?"

"Well, they’re nothing like the soldiers we have in the Royal Army, who are mannered, orderly and capable noblemen. Here, the biggest part of the crowd comes from the third estate. They’re poorer than the shabbiest bookshop owner, and they don’t have the slightest ounce of discipline... Savages from the countryside, that’s all they are. And the rest are nobles of modest titles, but they’re not any better. You see that man over there, for example? That tall man with a thin mustache and a bright blue tunic?”

“The one who is better groomed than the rest, you mean?”

“Yes, that's him. Do not get fooled by his appearance, that is Colonel de la Motte, and he is a pure scoundrel. He has been on all sorts of odd rendezvous with the Cardinal de Rohan, lately, and we have every reason to believe that it is not for the best. You know the Cardinal de Rohan, do you not?”

“Who does not? You mean the Cardinal who has angered the Queen and is desperate to get on her good side again.”

“Yes, that is the man. And did you know that your former fiancée Jacqueline knew him too?”

 

At this, Jun blinked and shook his head very slowly. The general seemed slightly embarrassed.

 

“Never mind that, then. Anyways, the Cardinal’s not the best of fellows to hang out with. But de la Motte seems to be spending a good deal of time with him all the same. He always looks like he is scheming something, that man; I wonder what. But on top of all that, he is the worst captain I have ever had under my orders. What a rat!”

De Villars bloated his chest at some disagreeable memory but deflated almost immediately after, when he noticed another individual standing at the entrance of the garrison. A lavishly dressed man, but with levelheaded manners and unpretentious bearings… That visitor, despite looking fairly advanced in age, was elegant and bright, his nose royal, the unmistakable trait of the Bourbon family. Upon recognizing him, de Villars almost let out an open cry:

 

“ _Monsieur le Duc_!”

 

Jun turned, and the visitor laughed warmly as he walked closer to shake de Villars's hands. This was Philippe d’Orléans himself, cousin of the King Louis XVI:

 

“De Villars, I heard you were leaving on a mission tomorrow,” the man declared, “I thought I should say goodbye – or am I interrupting?”

“Not at all, Monsieur le Duc. Actually, this is a perfect occasion for me to introduce the two of you,” the General placed a warm hand on Jun’s shoulder, “this is my noble friend, the count Jun Matsumoto. And Jun, let me present to you the Duke d’Orléans, cousin of his Majesty the King and owner of the Palais-Royal.”

“Let us not be so pompous.” The Duke smiled. "I own the Palais-Royal by heritage, not virtue."

“Funny thing, that you should mention virtue, Monsieur le Duc. I was just telling Jun about de la Motte and the Cardinal de Rohan,” de Villars chuckled, “what a nasty pair, those two, I am sure you would agree.”

“Oh yes, that.”

 

At this, the Duke let out an odd little smirk. When observed from up close, his lips seemed particularly mysterious, a faint line drawn below the nose, too thin to be beautiful. Nothing in his appearance could attach a man of his rank to a place like the station of the French Guards, and yet, in spite of the drastic contrast between himself and the chaos around him, the Duke was absolutely imperturbable.

 

“Did you know, count,” he now started with a meaningful smile, “that there are reports of the Cardinal having tried to secure the sale of a particularly expensive necklace, recently? I do not know the details of the rumoured transaction... But one can only guess the reason he tried to buy it.”

“Not the Queen, I hope,” Jun grimaced.

“Oh, in any case, I was not the one who told you this.” the Duke placed a finger over his mouth. “Rumours are, after all, only rumours. But if it is true, it is pure folly. Such extravagance at a time where France cannot even feed itself…It’s deplorable.”

He looked at Jun with a nonchalant smile:

“Don’t you find it deplorable, count?”

“People are endowed with unequal privileges.” Jun pursed his lips. “It’s a sad but undeniable truth.”

“And do you find this _fair_?”

“I suppose that nothing can be done if the system doesn’t change from within.” he paused, pondering carefully over his answer. “Though of course, this raises the question of whether the system _should_ be changed from within or not, Duke. Egalitarianism is always a subject for debate.”

 

Egalitarianism! Philippe d’Orléans’ only weakness. The passion he nourished for Rousseau had made him excessively prone to those avant-garde concepts of democracy and equality of rights; concepts that most nobles did not care to share, and most commoners did not dare to voice. The Duke could not resist those thoughts and above all, he craved people’s company – _intelligent_ people’s company; people with whom he could discuss those farsighted ideas and people who could be open-minded enough to see the visions he saw. For a moment he stopped and observed Jun in silence, his clever eyes passing over him in a voiceless study. A pleased smile appeared on his face:

“I am sorry that I was not able to know you earlier, count. Please let me invite you to the Palais-Royal for supper next week, if you do not mind. I would be most glad to talk to you about happier things and to get to know you better.”

“We barely know each other,” Jun blinked.

“Doesn’t mean that we cannot get to know each other.” The Duke re-joined for all reply. “Next Tuesday? Seven?”

 

He left shortly after with his hat on his head, capping the end to his first of many meetings with Matsumoto Jun. Upon his departure, however, the General de Villars let out a sigh and shook his head as his smile gradually disappeared:

 

“The Duke is extremely liberal with his friendships, and not on particularly good terms with the royal family. Some say that he actually desires to overthrow the King in order to take his place…! He’s an ambiguous thing.”

Jun nodded, but looked into the distance and could not ease the uncertainty in his mind.

“I found him strangely charming.” he said.

“He _is_ a charming man.” The general agreed and mused. “But sometimes, his unconventional ideas can be a little unsettling... It puts people off, if you see what I mean? You never know how he truly stands vis-à-vis us nobles. If he likes us…or if he’d rather see us all disappear.”

 

 

 

 

The same day, Matsumoto Jun encountered Nino and Sho for the very first time, at the Café du Panacé.

 

In that small café of the Saint Denis district, beverages were always auxiliary. The real menu was for thoughts. In fact, the place was overtaken on a daily basis by young philosophers and intellectuals regardless of class, and those young minds mingled for hours, debated, bonded over their passion and their eagerness to learn, impressed each other as much as they could with a well-placed piece of information. Or else, out of deference, they listened. And on that day, Jun sat at a table on the terrace and did precisely that. He listened. And because he listened, he heard a peculiarly discourteous conversation between two men on the table behind him.

 

One said:

“With more courage to act, this country would have had a revolution ten years ago. With more guts, the people of this country would have freedom. But no one acts. No one stands up. And therefore, nothing changes. The Nobles continue to get their way while the poor starve."

“Oh~ you forget the poor Duke’s efforts, again.” the second responded mockingly.

“The Duke speaks in the dark, Nino... He doesn’t act out in the open and we just _can’t_ have anything concrete for this country if we do not act out in the open. French citizens have rights that they should assert without shame. They have the right to _speak_ and the right to _be heard_.”

“Some would say that without a “preamble”, there’d be no platform for those rights to be heard in the first place …”

“By preamble, you mean those barbaric assaults on nobles and wealthy town folks?” the first man sighed. “Those are only barbarous reactions of uneducated, unfortunate souls who are too hungry to think properly before resorting to violence. So much blood is shed, but nothing in the law changes. As lawyers, we should be focused on what the legislation can bring to this country, instead of applauding that kind of vicious behaviour. As much as I find the nobles disgusting, I know that barbarity will not solve a thing.”

“Say, did you see the body they fished out of the Seine about two weeks ago?”

“You mean that noblewoman with the slit throat?”

At this, Jun could not help but raise his head, while the other two continued imperturbably.

“Yes, I was at the back of the crowd when they pulled her body out. It was ghastly.”

“I found it rather sensational.” the one called Nino let out a condescending chortle. “See how nobles are mourned and missed when they die. We won’t get that treatment even if we perished in a heroic attempt to defend France from foreign invaders, I assure you... Come on, Sho. Even a purist like you should admit that a death like that of the slain noblewoman brings more public disarray than any amendment to the legislation. And it is with public unrest that people get heard most efficiently.”

 

Jun stood up before he could stop himself. His book discarded to one side, he turned around and glared at the two men behind, who stared back at him in a mute, startled daze. 

 

“Public unrest?” Jun repeated heatedly. “Sensational? It is this choice of words which is truly disgusting, not the behaviour of those who feed themselves through violence!”

 

The first of the two lawyers blinked in astonishment at this outburst, but Nino recovered his cool in close to no time.

 

“Eavesdropping is hardly a respectable sort of behaviour either.” he cocked an eyebrow, and briefly, Jun felt surprised at the childishness of his face, the juvenile charm of his features, which did not match the acerbic cynicism of his voice. “I suppose you are a noble yourself? All my apologies for speaking ill of you, then. It was nothing personal.”

“I do not believe that this is the issue at stake here.”

“There _are_ no issues at stake; the conversation you just heard was not meant for you.” Nino responded on the beat. He remained insolently seated even when Sho stood up embarrassedly to match Jun’s stance. “Besides, this is the Café du Panacé. If people cannot express themselves here, where should they go? All I have done is to share my most honest and humble opinions. If you do not agree with them, well, I can’t say that I care at all.”

“Nino, I don’t think-” Sho started, but Jun stopped him with a wave of the hand.

“You are right. It is my own business if I do not agree with your opinions, and you are perfectly entitled to voice them out,” he said. “But as lawyers, the two of you should be embarrassed to jest at the death of a poor innocent woman, who was well loved by her family and deserved all the mourning that was given to her.”

“Ah! so it is the lady’s death which weighs on your mind.” Nino scoffed, as if finally understanding. “And I would have thought that you were actually concerned about the state of affairs in France and the fate of the starving population. Nobleman, you disappoint me just as much as I disappoint you.”

 

He looked up again, and Jun felt a momentary waft of cold sending chills down his spine, for the young lawyer’s eyes had brusquely turned to ice, hiding daggers in their tranquillity:

 

“You’re now troubled over what two penniless barristers have to say about the inadvertent death of an aristocrat,” he said. “One day, you’ll realise that this should be the last of your worries. When the population of France finally awakens and asks for its due; when you nobles find yourselves pushed out of the picture and the King finally steps down from the pedestal protecting you; that day, you’ll be worried about more important, _urgent_ things.”

 

Jun listened and kept his breath. For all his insolence, his coldness, his scornful gaze, Nino had a strange charm of his own and it was impossible not to recognize it. His eyes were venomous, but magnetizing all the same. He spoke with overwhelming easiness. He had a perfect manoeuvre of every angle and turn of his voice. Belittled and disgusted, Jun could only hold the cold, mocking gaze in his and swallow the remonstrance that he could not spit out.

 

“What is your name?” Nino suddenly asked.

“Jun Matsumoto.”

“Then why don’t you sit down with us, Jun Matsumoto? We could continue our chat on better terms. Tell me why you were so flustered, for example. Did you know the dead lady personally?”

 

Jun threw his coins onto the table and did not wait another second to leave the place.

 

 

 

That evening, Nino and Sho travelled together through the streets of Paris and mentioned their sticky afternoon encounter again.

 

“You should not have been so gratuitously rude,” Sho said to his friend as they hurried away towards their separate homes. “What if the woman who died was related to him? Or was one of his friends?”

“I was only ‘rude’ because he was the one who got himself heated up first. Nobles need to be taught a lesson, sometimes,” Nino sneered. “Now Sho, stop pestering me and tell me instead; what’s that shapeless heap over there, at the corner of the street? It looks like some abandoned sack of wheat, or…”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“There, right there, can’t you see? That mound next to the road, that, that pile of cloths…”

“Oh, yes, you’re right! By God, Nino. It’s alive – it moves!”

 

They immediately rushed to the location of the struggling bundle and kneeled down, only to distinguish the features of a man beneath the thick layer of grime covering them. His hands were severely injured; his face marred by wounds. He breathed only faintly, half-conscious, his limbs devoid of strength and his entire body freezing under Sho’s probing touch. This shell of a human was Ohno Satoshi, the baker who had lost everything in a crate of pitiless flames two weeks ago. Since the night of the fire he had strayed through the streets of Paris and searched for a refuge without success, for in those terrible times, no one could afford an additional mouth to feed in the lower classes of Paris. Ohno’s neighbours had seen him as a burden, though they had tried not to think so. They helped initially, but sent him away after only two days. A group of drunk sentinels had then abused him with their fists and mocked him for his misfortune. And now, having lost his last strengths, Ohno was dying slowly on the pavement of Rue St-Martin, though – by chance – this had happened to be on Nino and Sho’s path tonight.

 

With combined efforts, the two lawyers brought the lifeless baker back to Nino’s home, where clumsy care was administered and a change of clothes was given to their inert patient. Sho quickly drew up on his inadequate knowledge of medicine, cleaned the nastiest wounds and put the man to bed. He was washed, disinfected, bandaged… Through it all, Ohno remained unconscious. Through it all, Nino watched the sleeping man and sat on his chair without so much of a shudder. And ironically enough, when the succeeding midday came around and Ohno finally reopened his eyes, the first person he saw by his bedside was not Sho Sakurai, the man who had spent hours tending to his wounds; but Nino instead, who had sat on his chair without moving since the start of their tempestuous night.

 

“You are awake,” was the younger man’s first remark when he saw Ohno’s tired eyes peering curiously at him from the bed. “Sho, you can come back. Our guest is alive and kicking.”

“Is he?” Sho cried as he returned from the adjacent room. “Thank God; I was starting to lose hope already.”

 

When Ohno’s dried lips refused to let him speak, Nino handed him a cup of water.

 

“Since you are awake now, maybe you could tell us your name and your story,” the barrister sat back down on his chair, but turned it backwards, riding it like a horse. “We found you laying on the streets with nothing but rags and wounds. I hope you do realise that you just escaped death in extremis.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t speak when he’s so weak already.”

Nino shrugged for all reply, before focusing his attention on the lying guest again: “My name is Kazunari Ninomiya,” he said. “And this is Sho Sakurai.”

“Satoshi Ohno.” the former baker managed through his parched throat.

 

 

He looked at his surroundings and blinked faintly.

“Where am I?”

“My apartment.” Nino smiled without emotion. “As I said, we found you on the streets.”

“You looked badly hurt and we didn’t want to leave you out there in the wind…” Sho gently explained as he cleaned his hands. “Have you been attacked? Paris is not safe, lately.”

“My house was burnt down. I am a baker... I _was_.” Ohno slowly explained, his voice a faded whisper, too weary to be sad. “My family is dead. My wife and children were killed and my money stolen. I haven’t eaten for two days.”

 

Nino simply nodded, while Sho faltered and quickly gave Ohno an apple from the kitchen.

 

They both watched as Ohno hungrily bit into the fruit, chewing huge mouthfuls with juice trickling down his chin and dribbling between his shaky fingers. But Nino felt no compassion. His nature made him indisposed to feel emotions such as empathy and gratuitous benevolence. Pity, yes, perhaps. Mixed with a sort of disdain.

 

But his eyes were constantly set on something higher.

 

Sho soon shook his head and sat down with a hand over his brow:

“This is pure folly. To attack nobles is one thing, but to launch heartless assaults on bakers out of desperation for bread…? Where is this country headed to?”

“Bakers are the only citizens of the lower class who have access to bread every day; it is understandable that they should attract people’s envy.” Nino commented unflappably with a hand propping his chin. He then directed his impassive gaze on Ohno’s curious eyes. “You’ve simply run out of luck, friend.”

“But that commoners should hurt other commoners like them!” Sho cried out.

He kicked the floor and furiously started to pace across the room:

“We are running straight towards anarchism.” he said. “A revolt. More than a revolt…The masses are slowly going mad with hunger, people are losing their heads, and the Royal family’s going to be the one to collect all the masses’ wrath in the end. It’s only a matter of time before that happens, I’m sure of it.”

 

With a bitter scoff, Nino stood up by the window, while Ohno raised his head slowly, his gentle eyes resting on his two rescuers one after the other. The younger attorney pulled the curtains open, and sunlight flooded the room.

 

“Not without another push against the popularity of the Royal family.” Nino mumbled. “What we need now is a scandal. A nice juicy scandal that would ruin the Royal couple’s reputation just a little more...I think that would make a wonderful present, don’t you think?”

“What kind of scandal do you mean?”

 

At the same instant, the door of the dim room flung open and a tousled Camille DesMoulins appeared on the doorstep with a wild look on his face. Both Nino and Sho turned around, startled.

 

“What is it, DesMoulins? You look shaken.”

“Shaken, that is a rather accurate word!” the man charged forward, grinning wildly. “Do you know what I have just heard from my journalist resources? That the King has just ordered the Cardinal de Rohan to justify himself before the Queen this morning – for what? For the unauthorised purchase of a diamond necklace, which the Cardinal claims to have bought for her Majesty… but which she claims never to have received, or even been aware of!”

“What?” Sho and Nino exclaimed in unison.

“And that is not all,” DesMoulins smiled, breathless. “Apparently, the Cardinal has paid the jeweller through a woman called Jeanne de la Motte, who seemed to have pretended to be a friend of Marie-Antoinette, but has now disappeared from town. Now the jeweller is asking the Queen for money.”

“What is the meaning of all that?” Sho widened his eyes.

“ _That,_ ” Nino exulted, jumping to his coat. “ _That_ is a fraud! A _scandal_! This is precisely what I was hoping for, my friends! Tell me more, DesMoulins! Quickly!”

“Well, I have told you the bigger part of what I know,” the man blinked. “The necklace must be in this woman’s possession, whoever and wherever she might be now. The King’s people are after her. I have never heard of a de la Motte before, but if she has managed to dupe the Cardinal de Rohan, the jeweller _and_ the Queen, she must be a clever woman indeed.”

“And now she has ran away with the necklace, and the Queen is in a mess because the Cardinal claims that she, Marie-Antoinette, was the one who ordered its purchase.” Nino reeled, throwing his coat over his shoulders. “Ah, this is perfect! Just perfect! I have to get more information on this. I want to know all the details. We are heading towards Versailles, DesMoulins, people over there will know more about the affair.”

“Do you want me to come along?” Sho frowned.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Do as you see fit.” Nino rearranged his scarf and leaped for the door. “I will be back soon. You can stay in Paris if you want; I am flying to Versailles and when I come back, I swear that the two of us shall be involved in this affair. O, long live the King! All hail Louis XVI! This is a _beautiful_ day…!”

 

 

*

 

 

 

When Jun journeyed to the Palais-Royal that evening to dine with the Duke d’Orléans, as agreed the previous week, he arrived only to be informed that his host would be absent from Paris for the entire evening. Indeed, the King’s cousin had just been called to Versailles, where urgent matters had arisen and his presence had been requested unequivocally. What matters? The maids were not too sure. But the Cardinal de Rohan seemed to be involved somehow, they said.

“The Duke will be back in the course of the night.”

Jun made up his mind, and waited in the boudoir of the Palais-Royal until his return.

 

For sure, before dawn, the Duke d’Orléans was back, and upon seeing Jun, his surprise was unmitigated.  

“Dear God, did I make you wait all this time?” his face whitened. “I thought I’d asked the maids to explain the situation to you and tell you how sorry I was…”

“The maids did well.” Jun stood up pressingly. “I should be the one apologising, for I stayed of my own accord.”

“Is something the matter?”

“I… suppose so.”

He coughed, feeling slightly embarrassed all of a sudden. At last, he confessed:

“I was simply curious as to your business in Versailles.”

 

With no sign of anger, the Duke simply let out a throaty laugh.  

 

“Have I crossed the line?” Jun pursed his lips.

“Well. Yes, and…no.” the elder man smiled. “You’re way more inquisitive than is appropriate, that’s for sure. But I appreciate this kind of boldness. Let’s sit down comfortably first before I tell anything.”

 

Jun obeyed, folding his hands over his thigh as the Duke smiled again and took off his rings.

“You see, I have already told you of the Cardinal trying to secure the sale of an extravagantly expensive necklace recently, have I not?” he started.

“A simple rumour, you said.” the younger man replied.

“Yes. Well, it appears that the rumours were, in fact, _true_.”

“True?”

“The Cardinal is now implicated in a fraud affair. He has been tricked, or else, has voluntarily partaken in fraud - we do not know. Either way, he is in deep trouble.”

The Duke sighed and continued:

“He claims that he has been deceived by a woman named Jeanne de la Motte and her husband - whom you have already heard of and who has now vanished from the country. Probably, he has gone to sell the diamonds abroad…” he waved his hand. “Anyways, we have captured the wife, so that is fine. And we have also captured a man named Rétaux de Villette; and a prostitute named Nicole…Oh! Would you believe it, that prostitute has the exact same face as Marie-Antoinette herself!” he laughed. “She is absolutely furious about it.”  

“What would a prostitute have to do with this affair?”

 

The Duke only shrugged and chuckled mysteriously as he called the maids. Once they arrived with two glasses of wine, he took a sip of his drink, and smiled good-naturedly at his young guest.

“Amusing, so far. Isn’t it?”

“Amusing?” Jun was dubious. “I would have thought that an affair like this would lead to a scandal…”

“Oh, yes. You are right, indeed, the public will boo…But who will they boo? The Cardinal, or the Royal Couple? That is something which remains to be seen.”

“As the cousin of the King, you seem very calm about this.”

 

The Duke d’Orléans turned a little more serious and placed his glass down.

 

“You have probably heard of my lack of sympathy for the Royal Family through rumour and blather. With you, I will be honest: there is truth in those rumours, though not all of it is accurate…I have no personal hatred for my cousin. What I do feel, however, is resentment towards the way he leads this country. France can be so much more. There are people, young people with talent out there, just waiting for a chance to have their say. My aspiration is to give them this chance. Give this country a chance to be reborn from its ashes.”

“Some may say that this is going straight against the monarchy, Duke.” Jun said carefully. “I have heard that you open the Palais-Royal to young politics-driven men named the Jacobins.”

“You have good sources, my friend. Yes, I do. And I am not ashamed of it. Some of those people are bright, hopeful, young souls who are full of drive and full of potential. You might not agree with me now… but one day, you will understand it too, count. Trust me, you will.”

 

Jun remained silent for a long moment before narrowing his eyes:

“Do you wish to see your cousin fall?”

 

The Duke only smiled enigmatically, before gesturing towards him with his chin.

 

“I have said more than enough. Now it is your turn to tell me, Jun – if you do not mind me calling you this way.” he sat up without haste. “What truly pushes you to ask me so much about the affair of the necklace? It cannot just be curiosity, now…Can it? You seem…particularly eager.”

The young count pursed his lips, feeling his host’s piercing gaze travelling over his face.

 

Lying would be useless in front of such a man, he knew.

 

“A lady I knew was killed in Paris on the night of the 28th June,” he finally admitted with some reluctance.

“Ah, yes. The “de Beauriviers Affair”, I heard all about it.”

“Yes. But the hitch is that at the time of her murder, she was supposed to be in Helsinki; she was supposed to stay there for half a year more. No one knew of her return to Paris before she died.” he raised his eyes: “I cannot help but think that something big has pulled her back to this country against her will.”

“Something big?”

“Something…out of her control.”

The Duke squinted.

“Oh, I see.” he suddenly nodded. “You think that she could have been implicated in the affair of the necklace.”

“I am not drawing conclusions... But de Villars has informed me that she knew the Cardinal de Rohan in one way or another.” Jun explained. “That fact had been unknown to me until last week.”

“Well, the timing would certainly fit, more or less.” The Duke smirked, putting a hand underneath his chin. “And it does sound a little mysterious…Why not investigate it a bit further?”

 

When the younger man blinked in puzzlement, his host burst into renewed laughter.

 

“Do not look so surprised, my friend. The trial of the Cardinal de Rohan is due to start at the Parliament of Paris in a few days’ time, and I have a seat reserved due to my status as Louis’s cousin. However it just so happens that I was planning to go on an excursion to Austria with my mistress next week and it would upset me very much to have to cancel my arrangements.” The Duke raised his glass. “You could go to the trial as my representative and sit in the tribunes. You could act as my eyes. My ears.” He flashed another smile. “You might also be able to satisfy your curiosity as to your deceased friend’s affair – if somehow the two cases _do_ happen to be related…”

 

 

*

 

As a representative, Jun did go. He sat in the tribunes of the Parliament of Paris; and for the first few months following the start of the trial, he saw and heard nothing. Those tedious first months could in fact be resumed into one single word… _Stagnation_. The facts of the case were repeated countless times… New evidence was adduced, old evidence emphasized… The defendants disagreed with each other vehemently and made every attempt to distort the story to their own advantage, making a fool of the King and Queen by the same occasion.

 

But even through those first months of torpor, Jeanne de la Motte speedily distinguished herself as the chief reprobate in the whole affair.

 

From the information that Jun had gathered from the trial, it became dreadfully obvious that – despite her attestations to the contrary – the Cardinal de Rohan had been nothing but a pawn in Jeanne de la Motte’s ambitious scheme. Believing her to be a close friend of the Queen, he had taken her every word for the gospel truth and for months, she manipulated him with her husband’s collaboration. For months she made him dance in the palm of her hand, watching him make a fool of himself. For months, she used a man named Rétaux de Villette to forge shameless letters signed “Marie-Antoinette de France” which she sent to the Cardinal to make him flounder like a dolphin.

 

To perfect the illusion she created, she then hired the prostitute Nicole Lequay – who was known for her uncanny resemblance to the Queen – and staged a nocturnal meeting between the two of them. According to the Cardinal, Marie-Antoinette would have confessed her sinful, passionate feelings for him on that night, and would have even given him a red rose as a token of her affection; but of course, it was evident that the woman he had met was in fact Nicole Lequay – a prostitute only, and not a Queen… De la Motte’s operation eventually climaxed into the purchase of the Diamond necklace, a jewel worth the prodigious amount of  2,000,000 livres, which the Cardinal entrusted her with. He was positive that she would pass it on to her Majesty.

“But how,” the judge enquired from behind his glasses, “could you be _sure_ that she did pass it on to her Majesty, Cardinal?”

Terrified and mortified, the Cardinal shook his head. He wasn’t. He wasn’t sure. How could he possibly be?

“Then what prompted you to do such a senseless thing?”

The defendant lowered his head and choked on a sob. Gullibility was the answer. But he did not have the heart to say it, and fortunately, no one forced him to.

 

 

For Jeanne, on the other hand, the purchase of the necklace meant that the deal was done. The jewel in her possession, she rapidly broke it up into individual diamonds and presented the whole lot to her husband. He in turn brought the diamonds abroad to sell it; and when the jeweller Boehmer suddenly walked up to the Queen to claim the missing remainder of the necklace’s payment, it immediately became apparent that they had all been duped.

 

 

 

 

Now the main defendant in this court trial, Jeanne de la Motte faced the judge with cunning insolence, and at her side the prostitute Nicole, the forger Rétaux, and at last, the cowering and guilt-ridden Cardinal de Rohan, all awaited the judgment with trembling eyes. Speaking for them was a young lawyer from the region of Arras, a man by the name of Sho Sakurai whose face Jun barely recognized from his seat in the tribunes. His speeches were dramatic, longwinded and mind-numbing. The nobleman hardly listened, though his neighbour, the Marquis de LaFayette, credited the man for his verbosity.

 

“Were all young lawyers to be like this, brigands would find themselves in big trouble.” he remarked. 

“Are you talking about that Sakurai?” Jun cocked an eyebrow. “He seems rather dull to me.”

“But for a lawyer from outside of Paris, he is far from mediocre. He has a way with words… if only he did not make his sentences so laborious.”   

 

Jun nodded absent-mindedly at the marquis’s words, and smiled politely when he chuckled. His attention was elsewhere. Between all the bookkeepers and the notaries in this judging crowd, Jun had suddenly recognized Ninomiya Kazunari in the tribunes across the hall; the impertinent attorney who had ruthlessly castigated him at the Café du Panacé; the man with the face of a child and the eyes of a tiger; the man who would side with no one, and yet with everyone, during the bloodiest years of the Revolution. Now, that same man listened attentively to the barristers at work, quiet, discreet, on his guard; impassive when the parties he vouched for seemed condemned and leering nonchalantly when an acquittal seemed possible. Above all his eyes were set on the Royal Couple, watching out for the slightest change in their expressions. Every reaction told him something different about the impact of this affair on the politics of France. Whether the Cardinal de Rohan would be the laughing stock of the crowd, or whether the Crown would be the one to lose face in the eyes of its people. His eyes followed every hint.

 

And with every new turn of events, they glistened with a different kind of light.

 

When the lawyer eventually noticed Jun’s severe gaze resting on his person, he smiled, and bending towards his right, whispered something to his neighbour, a young man with brown messy hair who in turn glanced up at the count and looked back at Nino in confusion. Jun scowled and turned away first. The two of them would not cross each other’s gaze for the rest of the trial. But they would run across one another again, soon enough.

 

 

On May 31st 1786, the verdict was delivered.

 

“Rétaux de Villette.” The judge started as he slowly unrolled his speech and leered at the public below. “Exiled.” he articulated.

 Not a movement in the tribunes. The judge continued once more.

 “Nicole Lequay.” A dramatic pause. Silence. “Acquitted.”

At this, quiet murmurs passed through the crowd and the rows of the tribunes buzzed with a chuckle or two. The Marquis de LaFayette was shaking his head.

“Jeanne de la Motte,” the verdict continued to read, “condemned to imprisonment, whipping and iron branding in the Prison of the Salpêtrières.”

Ah! The public gasped, while Jun pursed his lips and crossed his arms, as the judge finally raised his piercing eyes to face the tribunes:

“And the Cardinal de Rohan, _a_ _cquitted_ of all charges.”

 

“Acquitted!” the Queen burst out crying as she covered her face. “The court is losing its head!

 

 

But as much as the decision revolted the Royal Family, Nino welcomed it with triumph.

 

By now, the Affair of the Necklace had gathered enough public attention for the masses to take their sides; and in view of Marie-Antoinette’s plunging popularity, most people in the lower classes of Paris had started to side with the Cardinal, hoping for his acquittal so that the Queen could be humiliated. And humiliated she was…! The Cardinal’s release was welcomed with a wave of applaud, rendering Marie-Antoinette livid in her seat. From then on, her popularity would only continue to descend, diligently leading her husband and her down the path of disgrace, until the start of the Revolution which would sweep them all away, three years down the road. As soon as the session ended, Nino jumped off his seat and rushed through the galleries of Parliament to find Sho in the wings. He hailed his friend with open arms at the very sight of him.

 

“Sho, you are a genius! You are amazing!”

“Oh, don’t be so obvious with your joy, will you?” the other man smiled embarrassedly as his companion came crashing into his arms. “Oh, God…I think I’ll be forced to pretend that I don’t know you.”

“Hush! I shall exude my joy if I need to.  There is no stopping me.” Nino grinned, grabbing him by the shoulder. “The outcome of the trial is flawless. A full acquittal of Nicole and the Cardinal? We couldn’t have hoped for anything better.”

“What do you make of Jeanne de la Motte’s imprisonment and her missing husband, then?”

“Well, that only makes everything all the more dramatic.” The younger man beamed satisfyingly. “Besides, you wouldn’t have liked her getting acquitted... You and your sense of justice, ah! You would have felt guilty yourself.”

Sho mused, lips puckered: “Yes, you’re right.”

“I’m always right. But, say! what a memorable scandal this has been! So much for the monarchy...”

“This reminds me… Do you remember the baker we helped the other day?” Sho suddenly twisted his neck to look at his friend. “He told me he was looking for work at de la Motte’s household, recently.”

“He was looking for work from de la Motte? What a silly idea. Fetch him quickly, and bring him back to mine. He will stay with me and help me with my own domestic chores if he needs a job that badly. I will host him free of charge. Ah, I am in a generous mood today. I’m feeling wonderfully well! What a glorious turn of events this is!”

 

 

As for Matsumoto Jun, only deception remained…The hearing had rapidly disillusioned him of all expectations he nourished vis-à-vis the Cardinal, whose behaviour had been disappointing at best. There was no malevolence, nor intelligence in that clumsy, repulsive figure of a man; only a stupid and naïve simpleton, not a mastermind implicated in a murder affair. Jacqueline de Beaurivier’s death would thus not be solved as easily as he would have first thought.

 

But as time would tell him, Nino’s ominous words in the Café du Panacé were rapidly going to prove their worth, and the young noblewoman’s death would become but a trifling worry in the awakening rage that the Affair of the Necklace had stirred amongst the poorer masses of Paris.

There were also actors yet waiting to walk onstage; fearsome giants like Danton, like Robespierre, and his loyal accomplice Saint-Just; not to mention the treacherous foxes like Fouché, so vile and yet so extraordinary in their perfidy… Those men were still brooding  in the dark and waiting for their time to come. Waiting for the chance to hone their swords in the rising fire of the Revolution.

Waiting for the power of the few to transfer into the hands of the third estate.      

 

 


	2. Part II

~*~

 

 

 

**ACT II**

 

In the middle of the night, a small troop of French Guards executed their quotidian patrol in the Parisian Streets near the Tuileries Palace. The times had changed a lot since good old 1785. The poor were now poorer than they had ever been. Individuals got attacked almost every night. Long gone were the days where the population of France hailed their new King Louis XVI and his beautiful eighteen years old wife, as they paraded across the city on a sunny afternoon. Now, those city roads were barren and the citizens bitter.

 

Even that small group of French Guards, who patrolled through the streets at night talked of their Monarch in the ugliest terms, and did it without shame. One called the Queen a bitch. The other one called the King a blind idiot who could not even see that his wife was cheating on him with a foreign count. A third called all the nobles cowards, and at this everyone concurred.

 

Everyone but one man.

 

Aiba Masaki, who had met Matsumoto Jun on a fresh and hopeful afternoon and had remembered him ever since then, was the only one to disagree with his comrades.

 

“It’s not true, that.” he finally voiced out after a while. “There’re some nobles who are forthright and good, and who don’t give up on their values just to save their lives.”

Another man mocked him: “Oh, are you still going on ‘bout that count or something? You sound like you’re in love with the man, and yet you don’t even know him.”

“I might not really know him... But it doesn’t mean I can’t respect him for his honour.”

“Honour? Don’t give us that.” his other colleagues snickered. “You’re still looking for your disgraced younger brother who’s run away from home four years ago. Funny thing, that _you_ should talk to us about honour!”

“Maybe you should lecture your own family ‘bout honour first.” another added.

 

Aiba blushed and closed up on himself. But the other soldiers still jeered and sniggered at him, and did not stop until they reached the Place Louis XV, later renamed the Place of the Revolution. There, a young caped man with a distinctive mole on his chin was standing alone by the water fountain. As they noticed the stranger, they all stopped in their march and eyed each other. Then, on a mutual understanding, they seized their swords and formed an intimidating circle around the lone wanderer, who surprisingly, looked perfectly calm despite the apparent threat.

 

“Good evening, gentlemen.” the stranger offered a polite smile. “Nice weather tonight, isn’t it?”

“Don’t tergiversate and give us your title and name. Quick.”

“A title? I wish I had one... I’m just an ordinary barrister from the region of Arras. You can call me Nino.”

 

He lifted the corner of his vest like a skirt and bowed a little for the sake of his tormenters, causing them to glance at each other in uncertainty. They were expecting fear and were finding none. Those coarse young boys without an education were only capable of using their ranks and uniforms as a way to frighten, to bully, to assert power over those who were too ignorant to protest against their muscular arms and their bayonets. Nino knew this. And for the man with knowledge, fear is obsolete. In front of a bending reed, the harsh tempest was out of luck.

 

“What is your business out alone at such late hours?” the guards inquired yet again, but this time, with less conviction.

“Just taking a stroll. Why, is it not allowed? I thought those were public streets.” Nino shrugged. “Or has the Queen and King ordered a complete privatisation of Paris overnight? Wouldn’t surprise me either, to be honest.”

Some of the soldiers laughed, others hid their smiles. Only Aiba frowned and observed the strange lawyer with a distrustful eye.

 

He had seen this odd-looking folk wander close to the Palais-Royal in the past, wearing that same buoyant and mocking smile of his, conversing animatedly with the sentinels of the Duke d’Orléans. He had seen him with the likes of men that were strongly against the monarchy and watched him talk to them with the mildness of a priest. Something instinctive in Aiba told him that this short man with soft cheeks and mellow lips was not a man at all, but a venomous wasp. His intuition, natural armour for his naivety, warned him against this individual’s charms with vehemence, and prompted him to step forward when all his colleagues were ready to look away.

“Are you sure that you’re really just taking a walk?” he interrogated with a scowl. “We don’t want people stirring trouble in Paris in the middle of the night.”

 

Nino turned to look at him with a sort of mild surprise, which rapidly disappeared and faded into amusement again when all the other guards burst into mocking laughter.

 

“What kind of trouble could a lawyer stir at three in the morning anyway?” one of the other French Guard scoffed and tapped Aiba on the shoulder. “Come on, Aiba, we should go back to the station and get some sleep.”

“But he looks like he’s waiting for someone,” Aiba insisted, staring intently into Nino’s dark eyes. “It’s three in the morning. What kind of client would a lawyer get a such an hour? He must be waiting for something else.”

“Well,” Nino began with a smile.

“Is it really a client that you’re waiting for?” Aiba pushed on. “Or else…”

 

He had not finished his sentence that from the corner of the nearest alley, another man arrived, running, and stopped once he arrived at Nino’s side. The latter placed a hand on the newcomer’s shoulder and beamed a victorious smile at Aiba.

 

“You caught me red-handed.” he said in a falsely affected voice. “I was waiting for my dear friend Ohno, right here. We were going on a walk together since we could not sleep.”

 

The said Ohno simply blinked at the people gathered around him, silently perplexed by so much attention, whilst the French Guards looked at each other in turn and assessed the situation. Aiba glowered. But Ohno’s face seemed so genuinely confused, so innocent and so defenceless, that they all relented in the end, stepping back to let the lawyer and his friend through.

 

“Thank you,” Nino said, then added with a smug grin towards Aiba, “And, I suppose; until next time, country bumpkin.”

 

Aiba watched them discontentedly as they walked off, but this time, did not say anything else.

 

 

Once they had travelled a number of streets without speaking and made sure that none of the guards had followed them, Ohno finally seemed to remember something and pulled a roll of paper from his satchel.

“Here, Nino. The discourse that you forgot back home.” he said.

“Ah. Thank you.” Nino picked them up and hid them in his own jacket. “Would have been rather bummed if I did not have this.”

“Are we still going to the Palais-Royal?”

“The Palais-Royal? God, no. It has been a while since we have not met there; you need to keep your facts and figures up to date, my dear Ohno. Besides, there is no need for us Jacobins to meet there anymore.”

“Oh.” Ohno blinked flatly. “Then where are we heading?”

“We are heading to Sho’s house.”

“Why?”

“Why? Dear Lord, you are slow, aren’t you? Do you never listen to us when Sho and I argue during dinner or lunch?”

“I try not to.”

Nino rolled his eyes.

“We are going to Sho’s to discuss the content of the next Estates-General meeting with the rest of the Commons. Alright? It’s as simple as that…But maybe you need me to explain to you what that means as well?”

 

Ohno nodded good-heartedly without taking offense. Nino took a breath as they continued pacing through the obscure backstreets.  

“The Estates-General are split into three divisions who meet regularly in Versailles with the King to discuss the future of this country. The last time those Estates-General were convoked – before  this year, I mean, was actually in 1614 – now, this tells you a lot about the state of France at the moment. Anyways, the first division, as you can guess, is the First Estate... That’s the clergy for you. The Second Estate is the nobility. Then lastly, we have the Third Estate, and that is the representatives of the people – the Commons. Sho and I are part of that, of course. Another nickname for us is the National Assembly, but no one is recognizing us as such for now. Anything unclear?”

 

Ohno shook his head docilely.

 

“Good, then let us go. We are already late enough as it is.”

“Nino, can I ask you something?”

“Yes, go ahead, child.”

“Why were you so haughty and sarcastic with the sentinels back there?”

“You mean the French Guard? He started it. I have no time to lose with people like those. I have much more important things to do than to pamper small fries.”

“Things like…an insurrection? making Louis XVI fall?”

“Oh. No,” Nino sneered, a smug air taking over him. “Not Louis XVI, no. My goals are set much further than that. Now, hurry up a bit, will you…?”

 

 

 

 

 

The years leading up to the present 1789 had been turbulent in every conceivable sense of the word.

 

Public unrest. Revolts. Political changes... In 1787, the Assembly of Notables had been convoked and dismissed, all in the same year. Convoked in the hope that they would solve the financial crisis that France was going through, and dismissed with the sole result of the Finance Ministers getting discredited thoroughly for their inability to find a solution against the said crisis. Meanwhile, the Duke d’Orléans found himself temporarily exiled for his violent protests against the King’s authority. He was then reinstated at a later time, when the Estates-General were convoked in the first half of 1789; but not until after Sieyès, the future revolutionary, would write his famous lines:

 

_What is the Third Estate?_

_Everything._

_What has it been until now in the political order?_

_Nothing._

_What does it ask?_

_To be something._

And indeed for a long time, the Third Estate would remain what they dreaded the most: _nothing_ ; their voices muffled by the Clergy and the Nobility. The voting system of the Estates-General, which asked votes to be taken by Estates and not by head, muzzled them with efficiency as the first two Estates coalesced in every meeting to stifle their adversary in its cradle. Until the overturn of this system, the Duke d’Orléans would be there to speak and act in the Commons’ favour, and to actively push some of the members of the Nobility to join the Third Estate. But there was only so much he could do, and it would be a while until the reins of power finally fell into the Commons’ hands.

 

As for Matsumoto Jun, who had gotten much closer to the Duke since the days of the Affair of the Necklace, he found himself spending all his effort trying to stay away from politics as 1789 rattled on. Indeed, it was getting harder each day to avoid the instabilities caused by the rifts in power between the different parties. The Nobles were growing worried. The rest of the population grew restless. To conserve a neutral stance about everything was gradually becoming impossible, and it became even more difficult for Jun to balance his recent friendship with the Duke D’Orléans, who was now a flamboyant anti-royalist, with his own noble upbringing which told him to side with the monarchy.

 

One day, he spoke about it to the marquis de LaFayette, who – at that time – had yet to become the commander of the National Guard of France, but was already starting to gain popularity amongst the Third Estate members, in spite of his noble title. Republican and conciliator, LaFayette smiled sadly and nodded at Jun’s words.

 

“Indeed, it is becoming unbearable for one to stay impartial nowadays. The rationality of the Third Estate is pulling us one way, and yet, our own interests as members of the nobility is constantly dragging us in the other direction. Being a noble in today’s France is a very difficult thing.”

“But you are popular with both the members of the Third Estate, and the Nobility.” Jun remarked. “Are you not doing a decent job at keeping the balance?”

“One can only hope that such a precarious balance will last, my friend,” the elder man answered with a sigh, “You know, I have just accepted a new servant at my house, the other day. A young man who used to be a baker, but has lost his entire family in a fire of a criminal nature four years ago.”

“Ah, that is an unfortunate thing.”

“Yes, it is.” LaFayette raised his head. “And when I look at him, I cannot help but think that the Third Estate is right in the things it asks. I cannot help but wish to help them in a way. And yet, at the same time, I know that I do not completely want to betray the King either. If I had to choose right now, I might find it hard to part with the monarchy, with the nobility, with what I am. Maybe I am only playing a double game. Maybe I am simply cheating both sides of the coin; I do not know.”

 

He paused, looking at Jun beseechingly.

“Matsumoto. What are _you_ going to do?”

“Nothing. It is what I have done best until now.”

“But you know some members of the Third Estate too, do you not?” LaFayette frowned. “A Ninomiya, it seemed? I heard that you even went to a couple of those Palais-Royal meetings with the Duke d’Orléans, in the past.”

“I know Ninomiya by reputation. I’ve seen him once or twice, nothing more.”

“Ah. Well, maybe that’s for the best,” the elder man said as he stood up from the bench, ready to leave. “Be careful with those people who call themselves Jacobins, my friend. They have more than one trick up their sleeves, and something tells me that they will be ready to do a lot in order to achieve their ends. Being part of the Estates-General might be but a minor step, for people like them.”

 

Despite LaFayette’s words, in 1789 the Jacobins were still tame. In 1789, The Estates-General was still known by that name, and the “National Assembly” was still but a new moniker that the Third Estate liked to give themselves when they met on their own. No one else recognized them as such. At least, not yet.

 

But this was about to change.

 

The shadow of the Revolution was lurking.

 

 

*

 

 

On the boiling afternoon of June 20th 1789, a procession of Third Estate deputies, who – proud of their newfound nickname as representatives of the people – made its way towards the entrance of the assembly hall, was shocked to discover that the chambers where the Estates-General usually met had been closed on them, on order of the King… The doors were blocked. A troop of French Guards busied themselves in front of the hall, keeping watch and barricading the entrance using large wooden bars.

 

They – the voice of the people, the representatives of the masses – had been locked out of an Estates-General Meeting.

 

At first, this herd of black robes were too stunned to move. They stood still, throwing incredulous glances at each other, wondering what to do. Then a wave of murmurs slowly started to rise. Why were the Third Estates the only ones to be locked out, voices asked? Was the King insulting them openly? Was he denying their freedom of speech? Their voice? Was this a sign of the monarchy trying to assert dominance over its subjects once again when they had only started to gain a semblance of liberty?

 

Amongst this nervous flock, stood Maximilien Robespierre – future “tyrant”, the Incorruptible, the _idealist_ , for now just an ordinary lawyer from Arras, and a deputy like everyone else. Eternally proud, eternally inflexible, his figure did not waver despite the general panic, and when he watched the crowd around him with his little grey eyes, it was not to hunt for a familiar face from whom to seek comfort, but only to absorb the masses of black mantles gathered behind him, united with him under the same flag, the same grand cause, the same ideal. He looked at them all and felt more at home. As long as there were people on his side, he would be fine. What Robespierre feared was adversity.

 

On the side of the mob, his eyes fell upon Camille DesMoulins, his old friend from Louis-Le-Grand. They had gone to college together and had held each other in great esteem ever since, having joyful childhood memories in common and genuine moments of hysterical laughter. A gentle smile appeared on his lips as he tried to catch his friend’s attention. Upon noticing Robespierre’s grey eyes, DesMoulins, who was there only as a spectator, turned his head and beamed a warm smile in return. He then turned back to face the front of the crowd without a word, the remains of joy still on his lips.

 

They were feeling much calmer already.

 

But a few rows behind them, Nino and Sho stood next to each other and were far from feeling the same kind of serenity. Their robes still felt awkward on their shoulders. In view of their fairly recent election, they were barely used to their own positions as deputies, and yet already, the assembly halls were closed on them – what a joke.

 

They soon exchanged a meaningful glance and pursed their lips.  

“The monarchy is not recognizing us as the National Assembly.” Sho commented downheartedly. “They are mocking us to rebuke us, to put us back in place.”

“If you have nothing inspiring to say, just shut it.” was Nino’s sole reply.

But in reality, his twisted face only betrayed the irritation in his heart. He felt just as anxious as everyone else, as uncertain, as insecure; and this insecurity made him furious. He watched the brigade of sentinels blocking the entrance of the assembly hall with fiery eyes and cursed every single one of them in his head. Lowly members of the French Guards, all of them. His gaze suddenly focused on one of the men lowering the wooden barricades in front of the grand doors, and his anger redoubled at once.

 

There was Aiba, as part of this company of bird brains, the very man he had mocked only a few days ago, the very man who had already tried to block his path once, near that water fountain on the Place of the Revolution. And now, that same man was obstructing his way to the Assembly Hall – the ridicule of it all! On a spurt of pure irritation, he tried to squeeze his way to the front of the mob.

 

But Sho stopped him before he could move a metre.

“What are you doing?”

“I have a few words to say to that soldier over there.” Nino retorted curtly. “Let me go.”

“Do you even know him?” Sho frowned, sensing his friend’s resentment intuitively. “Do not act rashly now. It is unlike you, and we have no time for that.”

“What do you propose, then? That we stay here and do nothing while those dogs block our way to the chambers?”

“Calm down.”

It was one of the rare instances Nino ever lost his cold-bloodedness in favour of anger and bitterness. He who revered hard-hearted composure over hot-headed impulses; despised romanticism and worshipped intelligence above all else; had always placed himself above those spurts of violent passion that typically shook the hearts of men. Yet, ironically, the only times he would ever lose his temper out of pure rage and animosity, would precisely be in the face of a sentimental, impulsive man of the French Guards... It was always the very specie of men whom he did not want to resemble, that would bring out the most human part of him.

 

Sho soon saw that at the front of the crowd, people had started to raise their voices and were now deliberating about something new. He smiled at his friend again:

“There, you see? I think people are starting to have an idea...”

 

 

 

A few metres away from this gathering, Jun stood alone and watched the general unrest which shook the entire swarm of locked-out deputies. He had assisted to the evolution of the emotional strife by coincidence and had seen their distress unfold in front of his very eyes. At the outset, the men standing at the front had tried to negotiate with the French Guards, in vain, and had given up without much of a choice. Then, the others had started to become impatient and had begun to shout angrily from the back of the mob.

 

But now the men in the first row turned to face their fellow delegates. They were asking everyone to move away.

“To the tennis court,” they suddenly shouted. “At once, my friends! If the King does not wish us to have a meeting in the Assembly Hall, we shall have a meeting of our own. Everyone, gather to the tennis court!”

 

The message passed. It spread. “To the tennis court,” some murmured. “To the tennis court!” they all cried back. And all of a sudden, this herd of black cloaks started to move again, coming alive under Jun’s astounded eyes; they stamped away from the assembly hall, taking everything away in their course. Before he knew, Jun himself – who had been standing too close to the end of the horde – found himself swept away with it, with its passion, with its enthusiasm and its energy. _To the tennis court!_ In a frenzy, he tripped and found himself next to Nino and Sho, who blinked at him with surprise, but rapidly stumbled close to him as the procession marched on. A sort of wild smile appeared on Nino’s face, replacing the initial scowl of anger that haunted him. He grabbed Sho’s shoulders first, and soon even Jun’s, to stabilize his steps as they all stomped onwards. The fire of passion burned away every kind of antipathy.

 

At the indoors tennis court in question, occurred what would later be known as the Tennis Court Oath; an oral pledge tying all the representatives of the Third Estate under the same noble objective. Gathered scruffily inside this vast hall, those inexperienced deputies set fire to their thirst and swore to remain united until the Constitution of France be written, regardless of the monarch’s will.    

 

“In no circumstances shall we dissolve; in no circumstances shall we drift apart. Until France gets its own recognized Constitution, we shall be one! Raise your hand, fellow citizens.”

 

An amphitheatre of raised hands welcomed those words.

 

“For France’s Written Constitution!”

 

The hall drowned in cheers, the sea of outstretched arms reaching out to the roof above them, taking them higher; always higher, until their voices amalgamated to become an ascending cloud of noise. Jun watched them from the darkest part of the galleries, and could not help but feel his heart caper in his chest. This was passion. This was ambition. This was fighting for an ideal whilst having nothing, chasing after a dream that did not know boundaries.

 

This was solidarity.

 

And this was hope.

 

Jun watched them in their united fire and felt touched against his will. He remembered LaFayette’s words during their brief and recent encounter; and realized how right they had been, how neutrality as such would not be possible anymore. Shaken, he turned away from this historical scene, and rapidly made his way out of the game court.

 

In the hall itself, Sho soon looked around him and tapped Nino on the shoulder.

“Matsumoto Jun,” he said. “The noble is gone.”

“Come and gone just like the wind,” Nino answered without hesitation.

 

But his tone was already less hostile than on the first time they had met.

 

 

 

 

 

Seven tumultuous days later, the validity of the National Assembly was recognized by Louis XVI. The First and the Second Estate were urged to merge with the Third, thus crowning the first big victory of the lower class.

 

It would not be long until Nino and Jun ran into each other once again – by fate – in the Café du Foy, a small teashop of the gardens of the Palais-Royal; but this time, they greeted each other with a smile, an acknowledging nod. Men who had witnessed unforgettable events together, may they be hardships or pure bliss, were much more inclined to overlook their past petty divergences. If they disliked each other at first, now they studied one another with refreshed caution. They saw each other under a less prejudiced light.

 

“Good morning, Matsumoto Jun.”

“And you.” the younger man casually replied.

Next to Nino stood the same man whom Jun had perceived, very briefly, during the Affair of the Necklace. Not the lawyer Sho Sakurai, but the auburn journalist DesMoulins, who now looked at Nino and Jun in turn, and soon pointed at the youngest of the two:

 

“You know him?” he asked his friend.

“Quite.” Nino smiled, putting his hands in his pockets. “By the way, Matsumoto Jun, this is my friend from the Jacobins club; Camille DesMoulins.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jun said tranquilly. “I remember seeing him next to you during the trial of Jeanne de la Motte.”

“Oh, you have good memory.” Nino grinned. “What brings you here today, nobleman?”

“Just seen the Duke d’Orléans.” Jun responded calmly, before studying his interlocutors carefully. “And you?”

“Us?” Nino glanced at the journalist and then at the sky. “Us; well, nothing much. Just discussing things…”

“The firing of the Finance Minister Jacques Necker.” DesMoulins interrupted. “Nino just informed me about it and it’s outrageous. The only Finance Minister who knows what he’s doing, dismissed. The King does not know what’s best at all…”

“I am just sharing some information that has come my way by chance.” the attorney said with another thin smile. He then designated Jun with a bob of his head, looking slightly more careful, “And you? How is the affair of the dead noble lady weighing on your mind? You seemed rather shaken last time.”

“It’s alright.”

“I hope you know that I meant no offense, that other day,” he said repentantly. “I talk quickly and do not always pick my words with care. If the lady happened to be related to you in any way…”

“She was my fiancée.”

“Ah.”

 

Nino’s eyelids fluttered, then fell again as he nodded.

“My apologies.”

“There is no need. What is past, is past.” Jun replied calmly before tightening his lips in a bitter smile. “Besides, I suppose I don’t really deserve to call myself Jacqueline’s fiancé anymore, considering that I tried to break our engagement two weeks before she died...”

The two deputies stared at him enquiringly this time, and he rapidly tried to brush the topic away.

“In any case, her death has been classified as an assault by ruffians who were after her jewelleries, so I suppose that I will never know the truth behind this affair.”

“Why? Do you believe that something else must have caused it?” DesMoulins blinked.

“I don’t know anymore.” Jun cleared his throat and shrugged. “She was found without any sign of her horse carriage, and was dressed in nothing but rags, but I fail to see why ruffians would have taken her body so far away from her coach, or why they would have wanted to get rid of her in the middle of Paris instead of taking her to the countryside… I used to have theories. Now I don’t have anything anymore. I’m lost.”

 

While the younger man sighed and turned away, Nino seemed pensive, supporting himself with a chair’s backrest. An amused expression then surfaced on his childlike features. He glanced up.

 

“Say, Jun. What would you think of becoming a member of the National Assembly?”

The younger man stared at him in total confusion.

“Say that again?”

“The _National Assembly_.” The lawyer rearticulated without rush. “Have you ever considered elections to become a deputy? You know the Duke d’Orléans. You’ve seen the oath at the tennis court. But you have never thought of becoming a deputy yourself?”

“Well. As a nobleman…”

“Oh, that’s irrelevant.” Nino chuckled amusedly as he tilted his head. “Look at Mirabeau and Talleyrand. Noble as anything, but still sitting as deputies.”

 

Jun opened his mouth. But the elder man soon shrugged and smiled at him without malice.

“It’s just a suggestion.”

“And I will keep it in mind.” the count responded. “But I do not think that I am fit to be a politician, let alone the servant of a revolution. No offense to the cause that you are defending.”

 

He paused and glanced at the beaming sun.

 

“It is getting late, gentlemen. I am going to take my leave first.”

“All the best to you, then.” Nino joined his hands behind his back. “And I hope that you will eventually find your answers, concerning the dead lady’s affair.”

 

When Jun finally left the café, DesMoulins leaned towards his friend and whispered quietly:

“Why did you suddenly ask him to run for deputy?”

“It never hurts to have allies in the nobility, my friend.” Nino shrugged. “I like having people under my wing, let it be a homeless baker who listens to my every word, or a stranded nobleman who wavers between the principles of his upbringing and the burgeoning revolution in his heart. This man does not know it, but he is leaning towards our side with every passing day. Having him in our party now would not be a bad thing.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know.”

“I do. That’s more than enough.”

DesMoulins chortled: “But putting this aside, it is a rather curious case indeed, do you not think?”

“What case?”

“The case of that dead fiancée, of course…! I reckon it would have made a fairly big story in the newspapers.”

“A poor story indeed!” Nino scoffed out loud. “Besides, you arrive at least a good four years too late for this article, you fool of a journalist. The death he was talking about happened on the 28th June 1785, Sho and I saw the body as it was fished out of the Seine. What date is it today? The 12th July 1789...”

“Seriously?”

“As serious as a Robespierre.”

“What a shame that I missed such a good affair!”

“And you wonder why your articles never bring you any fame?” Nino derided, before bringing his companion close to his face. “Now, listen to this instead. I have a better method to bring you up the ladder of fame, my friend; a revolutionary method – in the most radical sense of the word…”

 

Around them, the crowd was budding.

 

 

*

 

 

Oh, how people get incensed easily in times of needs! And how equally easy it is to use that spark to light the fire of madness! Because madness is indeed what happened on the 14th July 1789; that memorable day which seemed to mark the real start of the Revolution. The Bastille, imposing citadel, the most fortified prison crowning Paris, found itself stormed by a crowd of enraged civilians asking for the stronghold to give up its arms and surrender itself to the people of France.

 

At first, discussions were engaged between the civilians and the Prison Governor; there were talks of peace. But those talks then lingered, lingered extensively until the mob, exasperated, lunged into the outer courtyard of the bastion and provoked the start of gunfire and violence... From then on, folly began. When Jun headed towards the Bastille around midday to visit his friend – de Launay, the Governor – who had arranged to meet him during lunchtime, it did not take him more than a minute to realise that those plans were never going to happen.

 

From far down the rue Saint-Antoine the savagery could be sensed; it could be seen, could be smelled… The stench of gunpowder invaded the air. Before arriving at the site, Jun had already heard the desperate cries of women and the firing of rifles: The Governor had ordered to shoot into the crowd from the top of the towers. Civilians who were caught in the inner patio of the prison found themselves trapped like rats in a cage. The drawbridge was cut; they were at the mercy of the guns.

 

When Jun arrived at the site, everything was but chaos and death, blood trickling on the side of the roads. People screamed and fled, other civilians rushed towards the Bastille with weapons and tools in a desperate attempt to save their companions, but were stopped on the doorstep by sentinels with bayonets. The fights escalated. It became wild… Meanwhile, deputies had appeared from within the city in order to stop the mutiny, in vain. His heart thundering in his chest, Jun watched on and felt horror mounting within him like a waft of nausea.

 

A child in tears tripped in his panic to escape, and abruptly fell against his legs. The nobleman raised him to his feet and pulled him towards him:

“Come here,” he urged, cradling the wailing child in his arms.

 

And with one sudden surge of determination, he jumped onto a mound of barrels, placing himself well in view above the general crowd, and started waving vehemently in the direction of the safer streets:

“Over there! Civilians, keep calm and move your wounded in this direction! Keep the women and children safe!”

And because the panic continued, despite people obeying his instructions, he soon cried on: “Do not give up! The French Guards are coming!”

 

 _The French Guards_!

 

People turned and cried with hope.

 

Ah! Yes, there they were, in their bright blue uniforms; and a full regiment of them, equipped with two cannons…The French Guards were coming, indeed! But were they really going to side with the civilians?

 

Or were they going to stay on the side of the authorities, of de Launay?

 

For a second, men and women retained their breaths. Then, with a resounding groan, the cannons of the French Guards slowly lifted their heads towards the towers of the Bastille.

 

The citizens hailed.

“The French Guards are here to help us! Citizens, take up arms!”

“Take up arms and fight!”

“Fight!” concurred Jun, “Open fire!”

 

The first cannon shot was released; the front gates cracked. In the centre of his regiment, Aiba readied himself for a frontal attack of the prison walls. His squadron and he had derogated from their superior’ orders to come to the battlefront…At the first news of civilians being massacred at the Bastille, they had seized arms and rushed out of their barracks, running to their fellow citizens’ aid without listening to their general’s instructions.

 

Many of these young soldiers had members of their family trapped in this mob; relatives, friends – people from modest backgrounds knew each other well. They would not let their own acquaintances die at the mercy of nobles, surrounded like preys in a hunting chase, without weapons and without shields.

 

They would fight by the side of the civilians.

 

They would fight for a revolution.

 

“Over there, quickly!” Jun continued to motion towards the untouched buildings, while an old woman helped her wounded husband to walk. “Hide yourselves.”

 

Aiba raised his head at this. He knew this voice, which sounded so familiar and which he had dreamt of hearing again for a long time now. And for sure, when he looked up, there he was; Matsumoto Jun, the count he had met four years ago, still so slender and upright, his two beautiful eyes glowing beneath black, wavy locks. Aiba’s voice left him. What was this nobleman doing here, in this bloody chaos? He tried to wave and tell Jun to put himself to safety. But a cannon shot from above sent both Jun and the entire left side of his squadron to the ground.

 

The cannons of the Bastille had opened fire too.  

 

“Aim for their cannons!” he called in a cracked voice, waving madly at his friends. “Don’t let them destroy ours! Fire! Fire!”

“ _Fire_!” his colleagues echoed his screams.

The shots resonated, ear-breaking and fierce. The walls of the towers shattered, debris flying and crushing people in their fall.  

 

Amongst the wreckage, one civilian with a knitted sack stumbled over a piece of brick and almost fell to his knees, losing his balance, while simultaneously, the ramparts above him crumbled down towards him at a vertiginous speed. Aiba gasped and jumped in to pull the man away:

“Careful!” he screamed.

 

The two of them rolled off just in time, right before the deadly rocks came crashing down, shattering to pieces and raising a veil of dust in their passage. Coughing and sore, the two young men scrambled out of the dirty grime and looked at each other, dazed.

 

“You alright?” Aiba asked breathlessly.

The other man nodded wordlessly.

“You’re not hurt? Did the rocks hit you?”

“I am not hurt.” the stranger assured, surprisingly calm in spite of all the commotion. “All thanks to you.”

“You should get out of here if you’re not here to fight.” Aiba said. “Where were you heading?”

“LaFayette’s household.” the man smiled a little, a gentle smile which seemed completely out of place in the surrounding commotion. “My name is Ohno; I am now a servant in the Marquis’ house.”

“The Marquis de LaFayette?” Aiba blinked. “But you’re very far from his estate, I can tell you that…”

 

They glanced at their whereabouts and jumped to their feet. The French Guard pulled Ohno by the arm: “In any case, let me take you to safety first. You’ll get blown to pieces if you stay here... Come on! This madness will continue for a while and God knows how it’ll stop – God knows how it started!”

 

It had started – in fact – very simply, in the Café du Foy, two days ago, only moments after Jun’s departure. Within a few hours, the population of France had gathered in the gardens of the Palais-Royal by thousands. In their mouths, a single word: _Necker_. The dismissal of Necker, why, yes – the only Finance Minister who seemed to care about the Third Estate, and now, the King had sacked him. Where was their nation heading to? Doubts seized and festered the heart of those starved souls.

 

Then, all of a sudden, one man leapt onto a table of the Café du Foy and brandished a brand new pistol in his hand; one man, a young journalist by the name of Camille DesMoulins, who – abruptly inspired by some mysterious friend’s words – stood up straight in front of the crowd gathered around him and bellowed:

 

“Citizens!” he looked at everyone present and raised his hand. “There is no time to lose! The dismissal of Necker can only mean one thing for us: That it is Time! Time for the King’s government to go down – time for us to _take up arms_!”

To take up arms?

“Yes!” the journalist reaffirmed decisively, his usual stammer was completely gone. “Take up arms, citizens! The country is yours, not the King’s... Take up arms and fight against this tyranny! Take up arms and claim your rights!”

 

The call was vague. But the crowd unleashed its fury all the same, incensed at once by this passionate speech they had interiorly wished for since the start of the years of famine.

 

_Aux armes, citoyens!_

They had waited long enough already!

 

The next day, processions started their march through the streets of Paris with roars and rage, gathering guns and powder, and instating anarchy wherever they went. Weaponry stores were pillaged without mercy – why, of course, they needed munitions to go against the government of the King. And where else to seize the most powder but at the Bastille, this symbol of the impregnable?

 

As the mob slowly made their way towards the fortress, Nino watched his work unfold from the balcony of his apartment, and let out a sigh of fulfilment. The machinery was in motion. He took back the pistol he had given DesMoulins for his speech – speech that _he_ had instigated – and left him with the newfound fame. What he needed now, was to put himself in a safe place to wait for the calm after the storm.

 

But the storm raged on and still, no peace came.

 

Sho Sakurai, who had rushed back to Paris as soon as news of the commotion broke out, now busied himself with fellow deputies to order a cease-fire. They shouted, ran, fired signal shots and exhausted themselves for hours on end. But the violence continued. The casualties piled up. The madness was untameable.

“We might as well be invisible,” he whispered to his colleagues after a while, utterly discouraged.

 

But unable to give up, he plodded through the debris and the corpses, looking for people to help and children to save. And when he fell upon Jun’s curled up figure protecting a stranded child from the damage caused by a cannon ball, he recognized him immediately and pulled the young man out of the ruins in a hurry.

“Hey,” he shook the count’s shoulder. “Can you hear me? Hey…!”

With fluttering eyelids, the younger man woke up, still cradling the unconscious child in his arms.

“Is it over?” he murmured before anything else.

Sho bit his lips and wiped some blood of the other man’s face with his handkerchief.

“Not at all.” he smiled bitterly, still gently dabbing his impromptu patient’s forehead. “But I’m surprised to see that you’re involved in the first place. How long have you been lying here?”

“I don’t know…” Jun exhaled. “The child…? Is he alright?”

“You are still holding him.” Sho let his features relax for the first time that day. “He is unharmed, if that’s what worries you. You are the one in a pitiful state…Not him.”

 

Jun remained silent for a while, as the elder man slowly lifted him into a half-seated position, using his leg as a pillow. Faintly, around them, the mayhem continued to resonate, but it already sounded more weary than in the beginning of the afternoon. The soldiers were spent. The passion was already waning. The cannons had been silent for a while, now.

 

With a sigh, Jun lifted his heavy eyelids and looked fully at Sho for the first time.

“You are the lawyer from Arras… Nino’s friend.”

“Talk about a late reaction,” the elder man snorted without taking offense. “But do not feel the need to speak, and let us find a shelter first…We will get shot by some wandering sentinel from the Bastille if we stay out here for too long. Come on…”

 

While they moved painfully towards the shelter of an old carpentry, Ohno and Aiba continued to run under the rain of bullets, the smoke of burning straw and the noise of ruined homes. It was only after reaching a narrow, untouched dead-end behind the prison walls that they finally stopped their crazy race, and sat down against each other, panting wildly as the sounds of conflicts continued to reach their ears in a muffled hubbub.

 

Aiba swallowed through his parched throat and looked at Ohno. Now, he remembered seeing this sleepy-looking bloke near the water fountain of the Place of the Revolution. He remembered his association with Nino, the doubtful lawyer of Arras who was now a deputy of the National Assembly, and wondered how the two were related. As much as Nino inspired him unease and mistrust, Aiba felt no antipathy at all for the man at his side. Ohno smelt of simplicity. More importantly, he had the scent of honesty and loyalty, and Aiba felt confused as to why a righteous man like him would choose to associate himself with someone like Nino, who seemed the polar opposite of all virtues.

 

As the subdued sound of battle echoed around them, the soldier took the former baker’s hand.

 

“Have you been working for LaFayette for very long?”

Ohno seemed mildly surprised by this question.

“Not very long, no. But he has been very kind to me since I’ve come to his household.”

“You live there.”

“Yes, but I return to Nino’s apartment every day to clean and cook.”

“You’re still acquainted to _him,_ then.” Aiba stated, his expression falling. “I don’t know if you remember, but I met the two of you once at the Place of the Revolution.”

 

Ohno looked surprised; he did not remember at all.

 

With a saddened smile, Aiba stretched his legs and pointed at Ohno’s bag. “Are those groceries for LaFayette, or for Nino?”

“Both.” Ohno answered. “I am cooking dinner for Nino tonight. He has a National Assembly meeting tomorrow…I have promised that I would take care of him before he leaves.”

“You’re very kind to him.”

“The Marquis de LaFayette gives me an income and he is very generous with me. But my life is with Nino, since it is thanks to him that I have one now.”

 

Aiba watched his new companion with wonder and curiosity. Such devotion, in those almond-shaped eyes. He wondered if Nino truly deserved it – if he was even grateful for it. And after all, he supposed that it did not concern him anyways. But he looked at Ohno and felt a little sad…

 

Soon, he let go of the man’s hand and gazed at the sky above them.

“Let’s hope this commotion ends quickly, then, so you can go home for dinner,” he said.

 

At the same moment, a wild cry was heard from behind the ramparts, making them both turn their heads in the direction of the violence. With a glance at each other, they hurried out of their hiding spot and walked out into the open, surprised when they saw that people had stopped their fights. The sound of guns had ceased. Civilians were now pointing at the highest tower of the Bastille:

 

“A white flag!” a teenager yelled. “The Bastille has fallen!”

 

And indeed, there it was, the white flag of abandon… At last!

 

The Governor de Launay, seeing the folly of this mutiny, had finally ordered a cease-fire for all and yielded to the masses’ will.

 

“Oh God…” Aiba smiled, tears almost brimming in his eyes. “We won…The Bastille’s ours!”

 

To the Governor’s downfall, alas! As soon as the battlements of the Bastille were left undefended, the civilians rushed in like a hurricane, captured de Launay, and hauled him outside, under the booing of the crowd. He would ultimately end up decapitated, his head crudely put up on a stick and shown off to everyone down town as the crowd chanted and celebrated their blood-streaked victory.    

 

Fortunately, Jun did not see the violent demise of his friend, nor did he assist to the other senseless abuse that ensued. All he saw was the fluttering white flag wavering in the wind – tragic poetry, bittersweet and acrid, and the ruins that appeared beneath the last threads of smoke and gunpowder. His head resting on Sho’s thigh, he lifted his head a bit and exhaled shakily. An era had ended, had it not? Soon, the King himself would be incarcerated by his people, his wife and children taken with him to await the Assembly’s judgment… The reign of the nobility belonged to the past now; it was history.

 

Reassured that the conflicts were completely over, Nino had come out of his apartment and arrived to the frontline to see the aftermath of the chaos, and it took him very little time to find his friend in the middle of the ruins, holding Jun in his arms. Some other delegates were occupied nearby with the unconscious child and talking of bringing him to a doctor. Nino walked towards his companions with a smile. He placed a hand on Sho’s shoulder and grinned at Jun, who blinked weakly, surprised to see him there.

 

“Badly injured?” Nino inquired.

“Cuts and external wounds. Nothing too bad.” Sho replied in Jun’s stead, before scowling at the other lawyer: “Where were you?”

“Home.”

“Instead of coming to help?”

“I do not take interest into the finished product. For me, it is the process which is thought-provoking.”

“What on Earth do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” Nino beamed, kneeling next to his friend, and glancing at the wound on Jun’s forehead. He grazed it with his little finger: “My, that is a rather nasty cut, is it not? You might get a scar.”

 

Jun shut his eyes and let out a bitter chortle.

“I think that I am scarred already,” he declared, making Nino smile as he looked up at the exalted people around them, dancing far away and blaring patriotic songs.

 

“Look at them,” the lawyer said with a sneer. “They fight, they kill, they celebrate. For what? For an idea, hollow and devoid of anything concrete. There are seven prisoners in total in the Bastille; seven old prisoners that await death with lassitude and indifference, and yet, this crowd is ecstatic at the idea of having delivered them, as if they had freed an entire army. And they pillage. They murder. They indulge in barbarism in the name of freedom. _This_ is the start of our Revolution, my friend.”

 

“No. _This_ is an illegitimate riot,” Sho countered, “and it will stay this way unless the National Assembly does its work through law to validate it.”

“ _This_ is a Revolution.” Nino insisted, grinning as he threw his arm around Sho’s shoulder, narrowing his eyes at the sunlight piercing through the clouds. He pointed at the Bastille’s fallen towers with his other hand.

“And watch, my friends,” he smiled. “Here rises the Third Estate…!”

 

 

 

 

Two days later, Jacques Necker returned to Versailles as Finance Minister to the King. It would be another few months before the King himself would find no use for a Finance Minister at all.


	3. Part III

~*~

 

 

**ACT III**

 

 

Following the eruption of heavy protests on October 5th 1789, Louis XVI and his family were removed from Versailles along with the National Assembly and displaced to the Palais des Tuileries, where they were kept under revolutionaries’ custody. From then on, Paris became the real centre of all political developments, it was the heart of the Revolution... In 1790, the National Assembly had already abolished feudal ranks. On June 25th 1791, the royal family were caught as they tried to flee to Varennes, and were taken back to Paris by force before getting incarcerated. As time went on, the influence of the Jacobins grew stronger and stronger, and the monarchy fell back to a mere shadow of ancient times. The days of the Convention were imminent.

 

On a beautiful summer afternoon, Maximilien Robespierre, deputy of Arras at the National Assembly, received a letter sent from Blérancourt written by the hand of an admiring twenty-three years old, pleading for his help in a local petition that could affect the fate of the Blérancourt market. The letter, deferential and revering, went on in the following terms:

 

_“You, who support this staggering nation against the torrent of despotism and intrigues; you whom I know, like God, only through his miracles, I address myself to you, sir, to beg you to join with me to save my poor country…I do not know you personally, but you are great man. You are not only the deputy of a province, you are the deputy of Humanity and the Republic.”_

This message had been sent to him by Louis-Antoine Saint-Just: future deputy of Aisne at the Convention, and youngest of them all… Though he was unable to help the troubled Saint-Just with his request at the time, Robespierre kept his letter safely in a drawer, touched by its sincerity and its diffident admiration. They would not stay strangers for long; and in fact, their relationship was to become the most enigmatic and feared alliance of the entire revolution.

 

For now, however, the benjamin of all deputies was still abiding his time in Blérancourt, fighting boredom and incubating his dream of instating justice like everyone else... We were still far from the days of the “Archangel of the Revolution”!

 

 

*

 

 

It was three years following the Storming of the Bastille that the National Assembly dissolved and the conception of the Convention began.

 

Elections for deputies took place in each department of France: The freshly elected Convention was to become the new governing body of the country, now that the King was nothing but a quarantined old man bereft of power. By then, the nobles had lost all privileges and authority. People called each other “citizen”, regardless of their former title; and the more piously you lived, the more esteemed you were.

 

Jun had survived in this tempestuous and senseless France for three years now, and was growing weary of the insurgencies... Most importantly, he was growing unbearably nervous. The persecution against the rich had driven everyone mad. Many of his noble acquaintances had been killed after suffering the masses’ abuse. His friend, the General de Villars, had been shot during the night by a soldier of his own squadron, a scruffy son of peasant who had then been arrested and thrown into prison, before getting delivered by other thugs who welcomed him like a hero. Law and order seemed but an illusion nowadays. The count’s association with Nino and Sho had continued after the Storming of the Bastille in 1789, but despite their attempts to persuade him of the contrary, Jun had categorically refused to run for elections and join the ranks of deputies. He was afraid of taking part in those unbridled politics, of sitting with the same men who had taken all the nobles down, guilty or innocent, without distinction. The initial passion which he had glimpsed in the early days of the Revolution had now slightly faded in his heart.

 

He did not know where he stood anymore.

 

 

“But neutrality will not pay.” Nino spat one day as he and Sho walked down the corridors of the Palais des Tuileries side by side. “To preserve Jun’s safety, the best – and perhaps the only way – is to turn him into a deputy, whether he fully supports the revolution or not.”

“He still refuses to run for elections though,” the other man sighed. “How do we get people to vote for him, if he does not even want to be part of the candidates?”

“It does not matter that he is not prepared to run,” Nino snapped, “at the rate we are going in, former nobles will get themselves killed if they do not convert to the views of revolutionaries and Jun might well find himself on that list.”

“I know that,” the elder man’s expression darkened further, “But we cannot force him to do anything if he does not want to. The only solution we have is to try to convince him again.”

“Or else, we forget the elections and just get him in through the backdoor.”

“What?”

“Why? Can we not squeeze in a deputy or two, when the Convention has not even been officialised yet? Give him something minor! Aveyron! Isère! Nièvre!” Nino grumbled as they charged on, “any department will do, as long as he can siege at the tribunes with us. The Duke d’Orléans even changed his name to Phillipe Egalité and discarded his entire family tree just to siege at the assembly like an ordinary citizen. If we get Jun to do half of that, he might just be able to get accepted at the Convention.”

“He will still have to prove his worth to the existing members…”

“Do we not all?” Nino rolled his eyes as their steps resonated down the tall hallway. “Talk to your connections about it; Danton. Barère, Marat …Anyone who might have a say in this.”

“Robespierre.”

 

At this, the younger of the two grimaced.

“No, not that one…He is an incorruptible one, that.”

“Oh, you have secretly mocked him since our days together in Arras,” Sho smiled. “But yes, I suppose that you are right. I will talk to my connections and see what I can do. The most important thing is to preserve Jun’s safety, after all. But – how about Jacqueline’s affair?”

 

Nino stopped, staring at Sho.

“What about it?”

“Do you not think that we could help him with that as well? Search into what happened and try to uncover the truth about the woman’s death?”

“Well. I fail to see how we would succeed with that. It has been _seven_ years, Sho.”

“I could ask Camille DesMoulins or Marat. With their journalist resources, they could dig out something about the lady and her assassination.”

“Oh, please.” Nino snorted and started walking again. “Marat is too busy barking; DesMoulins is too busy fawning over his wife. What information could you possibly extract from them?”

“You will never know if you don’t try… Now, hush! I am hearing footsteps.”

As they both faced forward, a youthful gentleman turned around the corner and came towards them with sure steps.

 

Tall, slender and severe, this man had the build of a soldier; but his face presented almost all the soft lines of a woman’s features. The skin was smooth, slightly pale; the jaw well-defined and the cheekbones sharp. He wore his jabot high, thin neck completely hidden from view, his long dark hair falling to his shoulders.

The beauty of this man was impossible to ignore. But when he raised his head from the path he was taking to look at them, his two ice blue eyes, glowing beneath strong and dark eyebrows, were piercing like a falcon’s claws.  

 

Sho stopped first; and the deputy would have walked past them had Nino not snickered and called him back:

“Not saying hi to your fellow deputies?” he took one step backwards. “Would have expected more amiability, coming from a newly elected colleague.”

 

The other man stopped his stride and turned around, cold splendour considering them both in inflexible stoicism. Nino held the chilling gaze for a second before giving in.

“Did I hit the nail on the head?”

“About?”

“You being a newly elected deputy, of course,” Nino walked towards the younger man now. “What is your name?”

“Saint-Just.” The deputy’s voice was firm, though slightly misty. “Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, deputy of Aisne.”

“Oh.” Nino nodded. “Never heard of you before...Your first time playing a political role in Paris, perhaps.”

“I was unable to become eligible any earlier.” Saint-Just’s lips made a slight rictus, and Nino narrowed his eyes with a contemptuous smile.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” the young man dropped.

 

The age of eligibility at the Convention was twenty-five.

 

Nino laughed:

“A fledging small bird! You’re a precocious one, aren’t you?”

His interlocutor pursed his lips, but the elder man was still chuckling.

“Sho, look at this. What did I tell you the other day? The average age of the assembly is dropping.”

“I have heard Robespierre talk about you once, Saint-Just.” Sho gave the man a friendly smile. “He said you were a promising young man who was likely to be chosen as a deputy. And I can see that he was right, as usual.”

At the mention of Robespierre, Saint-Just showed a small smile – almost bashful, but rather odd-looking on his usually cold face. In fact, the emotion disappeared nearly as soon as it came.

 

“We corresponded by letters, that is all.”  

“Oh…Pen pals. I see.” Nino studied him and let out a brief chortle. “Well, if you need any help with the start of your political carrier…” he said casually. “Just come and ask freely. I will be glad to help. I am Ninomiya, and this is Sho Sakurai.”

Saint-Just eyed him, blue irises bright and impenetrable under the light of the sun, and when Nino started to frown, he smiled very fleetingly.

“I will think about it.” he answered, but his voice was empty of reverence in spite of his polite expression. “Thank you.”

He was about to leave when he suddenly seemed to remember to add:

“And a good day to you both.”

“And you too.” Sho replied, uncertain.

 

With the same sternness as he first came, the young man flapped his cardigan and left the hallway, his footsteps resonating eerily against the marbled floor. Sho watched him go with a sort of unsettled wonder, before looking back at Nino with shaken eyes.

“By God,” he murmured, “if I didn’t know any better, I would swear that we have a woman in disguise at the Convention!”

“With cheekbones like that? It’d be an ugly one,” Nino bit back, his eyes still fixed on the exit which Saint-Just took. “Did you see the arrogance? At his age, he already thinks that the entire Convention belongs to him. God, the nerve…”

“I wouldn’t call it arrogance.”

“Then what?”

“Determination?” Sho mused, serious. “ _Cold_ determination…”

 

They both repressed a shudder, strangely shaken by this frigid man who was their cadet in both experience and age, and yet was so imposing in his detached insolence that he became frightening to them both.  

“Let us go back to our original business.” Sho rapidly said. “So, uh, Jun’s entry at the Convention…”

“Yes…” Nino agreed distractedly. “Talk to your contacts. I will talk to mine. By the end of the month, we will get our friend into the Convention. It should be a done deal…”

“Alright.”

 

But his eyes were still watching the path taken by the deputy Saint-Just; and in Nino’s heart, respect mixed with scorn at the thought of this beautiful youth with solemn and intense severity… And oh! How had such an intense, brooding air of severity ever come to him? To this twenty-five years old man, still young, still unripe, who used to write erotic poems that sent the authorities of the Bastille after him in April 1789; that same young man who had ran away from home and had then almost immediately written to his mother in a state of panic, circuitously asking her to take him back; that same young man who had spent six months in a prison with mentally ill inmates and thieves as his mother’s punishment for his disobedience; that same young man who wrote with the deplorable spelling of a primary school boy, with the fantasist urge of abusing capital letters by placing them almost everywhere in his sentences…And _that_ man was now the youngest member of the Convention, an actor of the Revolution at its very heart!

 

But the truth was that the frivolous author of _Organt,_ was long gone already. The Saint-Just of 1792 was not just a simple young man. He was not merely precocious. He _knew_. He knew what he had seen, what he had to fend against, what he had to achieve to rebuild his country.

 

And already – before either of them had even set foot into the still unopened hall of the Convention – the duel to death between Nino and Saint-Just had begun.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, there were other people living their lives outside of the Convention. Ordinary people, leading ordinary lives. Ohno had just lost his job again. He had not been fired, but his employer simply had no need for a servant anymore. Indeed, since the Royal family’s flight to Varennes back in 1791, people had started to brood suspicions over LaFayette’s loyalty to the Revolution, wondering if he was truly on the side of the Third Estate, or whether he was just a dirty monarchist after all.

 

If he was not a monarchist, for instance, how could he have let the royal family escape so far and so easily, when he was supposed to be commander of the National Guards? The people doubted. A series of other events like the fusillade on the Champs-de-Mars, which killed four hundred civilians, had then increased those doubts and transformed them into antipathy, anger, aversion. At the same time, the monarchists themselves could not put their trust him. The Marquis was stranded. No one needed him anymore.

 

Now proclaimed a traitor by deputies, LaFayette ran the risk of falling under the blade of the guillotine and had to flee to Austria.  Before leaving, he looked at the servant he had found three years ago in front of his door, that faithful baker who had lost his entire family through no fault of his own and had served him wordlessly for three years now… Fumbling in his safe, the nobleman pulled out a heavy bag of golden coins that he swiftly placed into Ohno’s hands. The baker raised his eyes, surprised.

 

“Try to open a new shop with this,” LaFayette said, putting on his coat. “Create a new life of your own…and be well.”

 

He hurried into his carriage with his family a moment later, and once the horses sprang off and disappeared behind a screen of dust, Ohno stood there alone, on the front porch, with the gold in his hands and the rain drizzling on his head.

 

He then walked away from the Marquis’ household; wandered all day in the lower streets of Paris by himself without hurry. At each door, he threw a coin – just like that, onto the dirty doorstep, distributing them one after the other in this incongruous fashion…The tingling sound of gold hitting the ground accompanied him all the way to the Seine. And there, he raised the bag of coins above the waters and let it drop into the river below.   

 

Gone.

 

He turned his back to the water and strolled back home.

 

 

 

 

Now that weeks had passed since the start of his idleness, Ohno busied himself in Nino’s apartments; he cleaned the table, swept the floor and rearranged the sheets…When there was nothing to do he went outside to take a walk in the uplifting afternoons. It was one evening, when he started to wash the lawyer’s dirty laundry, that the three other men stormed in all at once into the room - Nino, Sho and Jun together - loud voices and heavy steps echoing everywhere.

 

“No. I am not running for your damn elections,” Jun threw his scarf onto the nearest chair as he raged in, “and I have told you countless times already, it is too late anyways.”

“It is for you own safety.” Nino warned.

“My own safety or not, count me out of this-”

“Jun, sir, are you staying for dinner?” Ohno asked with a smile.

“Huh?” the younger man turned around dizzily, recognizing him as the fellow who worked in Nino’s house on a daily basis. “Ah, yes. Ohno, I am staying for dinner, yes…”

“I don’t think you understand.” Sho was unrelenting. “The Convention is the next governing body of France. Its 750 deputies are going to be the ones holding the reins of authority and power for the years to come; _they_ are going to be the ones deciding the fate of the King, of his family, and of the monarchists in the near future.”

“If you’re not part of them, you’ll end on the list of nobles to be guillotined,” Nino chimed on his way to the bathroom.

“Oh, and if I am part of them, then…then what?” Jun glared. “I will be the one to send the King to the guillotine, perhaps?”     

Sho shut his eyes not to roll them: “I never said that.”

 

With a scornful laugh, the aristocrat joined his hands behind his back and strode towards the window. A rainstorm was brewing outside.

“It is absolutely true, though.” he retorted at last.

“No, it’s not. This is a democracy, Jun. No one is forced to do anything.”

“But I am forced to become a deputy.” Jun sneered. “Or actually, am I? What would I run for anyways? All the polls are closed already.”

“There is already a place guaranteed for you as deputy of Aube,” Sho raised his voice now, “if you are willing to take it.”

 

Astonished, Jun turned around.

 

“What?”

In front of his flabbergasted eyes, Sho fell out of words, and thus, Nino took it up as he came back to the living room:

“We tried to secure a place through the backdoor.” he explained calmly, drying his hands on a used towel. “Not very glorious, I admit, but lucky thing, the actual deputy of the Aube department has just decided to withdraw, only a few days ago. We immediately proposed a replacement to the President of the Convention and the others; told them you were the best of the best-”

“That’s absurd.”

“Absurd for now, but you never know; you might prove to be the greatest orator-”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Jun covered his face, facing the window curtains. “This is becoming more and more ridiculous…I don’t even want to talk about this anymore.”

“We are doing this for your own good,” Sho insisted.

“But why don’t you understand-”

“And why are you so stubborn?” Nino threw the towel onto the floor. Blinking tranquilly, Ohno bent down to retrieve it while the younger lawyer slammed his fist metrically over the table surface: “This is a matter of life and death – Do you think it was easy for us to get that position secured for you to start with? And do you know the significance of having such a position in the Convention…?” he calmly pointed an austere finger: “I don’t think you are even aware your own position, right now, Jun. But let me tell you this: Every day, the deputies are looking for monarchists to prosecute, their accusing eyes are scanning every rank of what used to be the nobility…and the nobles who are left alone by the Convention only fall under the hands of hungry workers. Have you thought about it? Have you thought about your family?”

“Nino.” Sho sighed.

“What would you say if you found your parents slain, their carriage raided in the middle of the street, one day?” the younger man continued cynically. “Think about it. As a deputy, you wouldn’t have to worry about this – you would be _immune_ to it. Your reputation would be out there: you’d be a former noble who has understood his faults and has become a valiant citizen. You and your family would be safe.”

 

Jun remained still next to the curtains, his back lonely and sad against the florid patterns. With another sigh, Sho soon walked up to the former count and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Jun, I know it’s hard, but you really need to reconsider this.”

 

The other man did not say a thing.

 

Without irritation, the elder lawyer smiled and leaned against the wall, next to the aristocrat.

“Do you remember the Tennis Court Oath?” he asked.

Jun looked oddly at him, looking pained.

“Yes.”

“That passion, that fierceness and genuineness… It touched you back then, didn’t it?” Sho continued casually. “It made you think. Made you dream a bit.”

The other man winced.

“I don’t know.”

“I do. And you have to realise that the Revolution isn’t all death and judgment… It is also about renovation. About idealism. About liberty, equality and fraternity…You know this too, deep down, I am sure of it. The Revolution can be unforgiving, but it fights for a noble cause. It only wants the best for its people.” he lifted a finger when Jun tried to speak. “The values of the Tennis Court Oath have not been forgotten. They are still waiting to take a constitutional form. And you can be part of this process, Jun.”

 

Uncertain, the younger man frowned, a hand clutching part of the windowsill. Sho’s smile lightened a little as he put his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.

“You seem to think that coming now to the side of the Third Estate would be a sign of cowardice. A sign of  weakness for abandoning the principles under which you’ve grown up.” he said, then paused and waited for the younger man to look fully at him before finishing:

“It’s not. Above all else, it would be a sign of courage...”

 

“ _A sign of courage_ ,” Nino sneered, later that evening, as he slouched in his armchair. “Bravo. Without your amazing advocacy skills, we would have been arguing until the break of dawn, and he still wouldn’t have yielded.”

In front of the looking glass, Sho simply threw on his cardigan and rearranged the folds of his tie. Ohno was bringing a brew to Nino’s chair and Jun had left early to make the long journey back to Boulogne-Sur-Seine.

 

“I was only telling the truth.” Sho exhaled, glancing down at his friend before flicking some dust off his vest. “You forget that for him, joining the Convention is like jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim. He knows nothing of our ways. He only knows that in spite of the laws we enforce, people are still hungry and still frustrated all over the country. He only sees that we have accused some nobles to be traitors and have prosecuted them ruthlessly. He sees that we have imprisoned a King; _the_ King. And his family. And that we are keeping him in a damp cell while we wonder whether we should judge him or not. For Jun to join the Convention now, he has to abandon his entire world first, and then find the guts to jump into an unknown one.” he stopped and turned around. “I would say that’s pretty daring. Would you not?”

 

Nino stared at him emotionlessly, and Sho kept his stance, serious, though not annoyed. After a quick tug at his vest, the elder lawyer snatched his hat and headed for the door.

“I will leave first. Thanks for dinner, by the way. It was delicious.”

“It wasn’t my cooking.”

“I know.” He halted. “Oh, and by the way, you know that I’m going to see the family back in Arras this week-”

“Yes, you told me. Have fun and say hi to the patriarch.”

“I will, of course.” Sho then remembered and turned back one last time, “don’t forget to conclude the proceedings for Jun tomorrow, so we can officialise his entry once and for all.”

 

With a lazy gesture of his hand, Nino showed his acquiescence, and soon the sound of the closing door told him that his friend was gone, leaving him alone with the quiet, diligent Ohno, who had now started to clean the dirty plates on the table.

 

The cups and bowls tinkered against each other as he gathered them in his arms. One of them almost rolled to the floor.  

 

“Oh, leave that aside, will you?” Nino scrunched his nose and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll do it later when I can bother... It’s noisy.”

 

Ohno looked at the porcelain in his hands, then silently put them away and walked back to sit on the armrest of Nino’s chair.

“Give me your hand.” The lawyer said flatly.

He obeyed… not so much out of submission, but out of automatism; and as he reached out his palm compliantly, Nino took it in his own and placed the elder man’s hand on his cheek, his eyes riveted on an empty spot on the wall. He was expressionless.

“You have nice hands, my dear Ohno. It’s a good trait; you can tell a lot from looking at a man’s hands…They do all the work for him.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Does that even matter?” Nino replied lazily, “I notice things, from time to time – Say, Ohno, you’ve been in the same situation as Jun, before – facing a new life, all that, when your family died. But I never saw you cry.”

“No. You’re right.”

“Did you cry?”

“I cried on the first night, after I arrived at my neighbours’ house.” Ohno said peacefully. “I cried a lot. And my tears bought me their pity for the night. But they did not buy me their understanding.”

Nino’s cheek still rested against his hand, warm, but strangely cold too. Like the blood in his veins was not enough to bring him to life.

“Tears don’t buy many things,” the younger man replied quietly after a while, but Ohno could not see his eyes.

“You’re right.” he nodded. “They don’t. I realised that. But it took me a few days…few days of being completely alone, of walking on without knowing where to go, of feeling nothing but pain and cold. I probably cried initially because I felt I didn’t have a choice, but it’s not like crying would have changed anything.” he chewed on his lower lip pensively. “It’s a good thing that Jun doesn’t have to go through the changes in his life alone. And it’s a good thing that he can choose what to do, too…”

 

Ohno stopped, noticing that Nino’s grip had gone loose all of a sudden, and that his head had grown very heavy against his hand. Twisting himself, he bent down and took a peek at the younger man’s face. In front of him, the long eyelashes were peaceful and delicate. The thin lips were slightly pulled, the cheeks red where Ohno’s hand rested. Black strands of hair fell in front of the eyes, hiding them as usual behind a veil of secrets.

 

The younger man had fallen asleep.

 

With gentle moves, Ohno drew his hand back and blew the lights off as he quietly shuffled away.    

 

 

*

 

 

‘To judge or not to judge.’

That was the question that had shaken, and was still shaking, the new-born Convention in its crib… The 750 elected deputies who had walked in gravely into the Salle des Manège of the Palais des Tuileries on September 21st 1792 now found themselves side-eyeing their neighbours as they hesitated without reaching an agreement. Yes, Louis Capet, that decay of a King, had lost all power and yes, he had sat in his cell without a complaint for more than months now, but how long could they still keep him in there without doing anything? Or rather, how long could they still wait, before this rotting symbol of royalty would finally have to be pulled out of his temporary drawer; before a decision would finally have to be taken about his fate? The Convention was split:

 

Were they allowed to judge the King in an open trial, or not?

 

“People are at a loss,” Nino murmured sardonically to his friends as they made their way into the hall with the rest of delegates. “It’s such a simple question, but no one dares to take the first step.”

Sho agreed rather reluctantly.

“The debate could last another decade at this rate.”

Jun, who was tailing closely behind, simply shuffled forward without a word. He had found a way to postpone his official entry to the Convention for a month – almost two, but now there was no more escape. November 17th 1792, he reluctantly followed Sho and Nino’s footsteps and entered for the first time into the hall of revolutionaries as a deputy.

 

The amphitheatre of the Salle des Manèges was, to him, a bitter reminder of his family’s shocked faces when he had finally dared to tell them about his leaving Boulogne-Sur-Seine. Him, their son, sitting in the Convention of Paris as a deputy, like one of those rabid Jacobins? Their expressions back then had not only been shock; it had been disappointment. Confusion.

 

They did not understand.

 

The sourness of that parting was still heavy on Jun’s tongue, even now that he had no more chance to go back in time... But discreet, he let his head sink diffidently, avoided the gaze of the men around him and, as quickly as he could, headed towards the tribunes to find a seat in order to shake off anyone’s attention. Ascending the stairs, he chose a fairly empty row and made an attempt to sit, but Nino caught him before he could find his place.

 

“Not here,” he whispered. “That’s where the Girondins sit.”   

“I’m sorry?”

Jun glanced at the people already installed on the row he had picked, but did not see anything peculiar with them. Nino and Sho motioned for him to go further up in the tribunes; they were blocking the queue behind them.  

“There,” Nino pushed without force. “The Mountain. That’s where Sho and I usually find our place… Come on.”

 

Jun followed disconcertedly, until they reached the highest benches of the tribunes, right beneath the galleries that allowed laymen to assist to the debates as spectators. There on those high-perched branches, Sho and Nino seemed at home, and lied down their files as they took their seat. Just one row below them, Maximilien Robespierre had also found his place and was now peering at his documents through his small round glasses with childhood friend Camille DesMoulins at his side. Danton was not far from their lot either.  

 

What was the meaning of all this? Well, tacit understanding – that was all; for this was the strange formation which had emerged very early in the wake of this political mayhem. Reflecting their different standings, the seats of the Convention were divided into three major groups. At one end of the room stayed the Girondins: the Mediterranean bourgeois, the moderate middle-class men who felt replete with the current state of affairs and did not want to push the barrel any further. As far as the Girondins were concerned, the Revolution could now slow down its pace. They were satisfied and devised a lenient end for the King. It was not that they did not care about the people of the third estate and their subsisting problems, but it simply did not seem necessary for them to crack a whip at all times or to indulge in radicalism anymore.

 

Others, on the other hand, viewed the situation rather differently... Leering from the highest benches of the Salle des Manèges, the _Montagnards_ stood watch, ah! those ultra-revolutionaries from the “Mountain”. The Revolution, dying now? That was impossible. What would have been the purpose of all their previous struggles otherwise? No. For those men, who came from modest backgrounds and were much more reckless than the Girondins, the Revolution could definitely not stop at this stage. It had to go the extra mile. Call for more changes. It had to fight for its people until the very end and leave no stone unturned. At their head, Robespierre, Danton, Marat, sat in their seats and scrutinized the temperate Girondins with a condemning eye… It would not be long until one of those two parties declared the start of hostilities, they knew.

 

But in the meantime, what stopped them from declaring open war? Well, in the centre of this silent battlefield, peacefully subsisted the largest division of the Convention: the _Plaine_.

“Also called the _Marais –_ “the Marshes” – for the cynical ones.” Nino smirked as he explained to Jun.

For those ever so cautious deputies, which actually formed the majority of the Convention, never took sides without thinking it through. Led by people like Barère, they sat indolently, deliberated, listened, judged the situation, and following the flow of tides, voted for the extremists or the moderates in turn without ever pitching in a determinate idea of their own.

 

They were the damp paste that kept the other two divisions in check. But they were also the tools for the two other siblings to fight against each other, and now that the minority parties’ first big disagreement had emerged vis-à-vis the fate of Louis Capet, there was nothing they could do to stop the conflicts anymore.

 

Amidst all this, Jun was lost:

“So you and Sho are part of the extremists.” he tried to conclude.

But at his words, few murmurs were exchanged around them, and the youngest man suddenly felt the judging stare of many a peer falling on his back. Nino rapidly cleared his throat on Sho’s right.

“ _Montagnards_ ,” he corrected, then almost inaudibly, “for now the Girondins have the lead in this Assembly, but we do not intend to let them have all the fun for very long. We are pretty tenacious, if you see what I mean.”

Jun blinked, and the lawyer lowered his voice.

“And for your information, you’re sitting in the Mountain, too.”

 

The younger man mouthed an understanding “Oh” before looking down at his hands awkwardly. And because Jun was now feeling uneasy under the conspicuous examination of the delegates around them, Nino twisted in his seat and sneered at the nearest observers.

 

“What?” he scoffed. “Have you never seen a beautiful lad in your lives? Get an eyeful. It’s for free.”

Offended in their embarrassment, the deputies quickly murmured amongst themselves and immediately returned to their own affairs. Next to him, Jun felt Sho’s hand close on his own. He glanced sideways, but the elder man was not looking at him.

“Don’t worry about them.” the attorney breathed. “It’ll be fine.”

 

And sure enough, everyone’s focus had switched to someone else already. A man, an extremely young and beautiful man, had just walked up to the platform with assured footsteps and taken place behind the central lectern where people usually delivered their speeches. Immediately, the customary racket appeared to shrink at the sight of this interesting but sombre bird – though more out of curiosity than out of respect. In fact, no one was particularly familiar with this tall and clean figure, long eyelashes under strong eyebrows, chilling eyes above a delicate mouth. And that shiny earring on his left ear…what a curiously pretty picture this fellow made! From his bench, the corpulent and robust Danton could not retain a wolf whistle. The crowd cheered.

 

But with one single glare, the young man shut the laughs out of everyone’s throat.

 

Robespierre had stopped the work he was doing on his seat, and, taking off his sunglasses, now squinted to watch the other man attentively. Even Nino, who had been smirking nonchalantly until now, suddenly lost the smile on his face.

“Who is this?” Jun asked Sho in a whisper.

Nino answered before the other man could open his mouth.

 

“Louis-Antoine Saint-Just.” he articulated. “Deputy of Aisne.”

 

“Citizens.” Saint-Just started in his hovering voice. “I shall now undertake to prove that the King _can_ be judged.”

He stopped, swiftly coughing into his sleeve as his voice suddenly escaped him in a misty hiss of nerve. The Girondins immediately took the chance to hoot, laughing and cheering at his predicament. But a second look, not even a glare, this time – just a glance of his glacial eyes directed at the cheering ranks of Girondins was enough to restore the calm and Saint-Just continued as if this incident had never happened:

“As I said, I shall undertake to prove to you that the former monarch, citizen Louis Capet, can be judged by this assembly.” he announced imperturbably. “I am saying that the King should be judged as an _enemy_ and that even more than judge him, we must fight him. Furthermore, as he was not a party to the contract that unites all French citizens, I submit that the judicial procedure to be followed should not be found in the Civil Law, but in the Common law instead…”

And because the crowd, too stunned to move, showed no major sign of reaction, he raised his index in the air and directed it at every single one of them:

“Perhaps one day, men as far detached from our prejudices as we are from those of the Vandals will be astonished by our barbarity. The barbarity of an age in which the judging of a tyrant  was thought to be something sacred. An age where people raised a tyrant to the rank of citizen before investigating his crimes and were more concerned about what posterity would say than about the task at hand…An age where a guilty man who belonged to the class of oppressors, the lowest class of humanity, became a martyr to their pride!”

 

He lifted his chin.

“One cannot reign innocently.” His voice was loud and clear in the deafening silence of the room. “The folly of it is only too evident…All Kings are rebels and usurpers. Do Kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority?”

 

In the tribunes, Jun realised too late that he had been retaining his breath all along; his heart was racing in his chest, resonating against his eardrums. Was it the exhilaration of the Tennis Court Oath slowly floating back? Or was it the unsettling feeling of insecurity which those words somehow inspired him?

 

Saint-Just looked dead at the multitude of deputies before him.

 

“For me, I see no middle ground. This man must reign. Or die.”

 

 

 

 

The phenomenon which the speech of Saint-Just caused on November 17 1792 was hardly describable. Was it a start? A turning point? Both, perhaps. Both and perhaps more…But what was certain was that it was this discourse which sealed Louis XVI’s fate, and which propelled Saint-Just to the vanguard of the Convention ranks by the same occasion. After a first minute of stunned silence, Marat – the “barker” – abruptly stood up from his seat in the mountain and started to clap, followed by Danton, then the entire Mountain. Within a minute, the whole assembly was acclaiming Saint-Just, acclaiming this daring youth for both his cold-blooded logicality and impudence. The Marshes joined in compliantly while the Girondins found themselves acknowledging this audacious speaker against their will - they did not know that in doing so, they had already admitted their defeat.

 

Another man would have flushed at such an ovation, perhaps; would have felt pleased by a recognition so sudden and so early in his career… But Saint-Just only stood up tall on the lectern, his lips still tight, his features impassive and his eyes fixed on a single point in this roused crowd. Robespierre, who had stood up as well and was now looking down at him with strange emotion on his face as he clapped appreciatively, was all he saw.

 

They held each other’s gaze, the younger fierce and strangely ardent; the elder pensive and oddly surprised. And with a quick scoff, Nino glanced at either of them before sitting back against his seat, his expression dark and thoughtful all of a sudden.

 

“Those two,” he murmured to no one in particular, “will have the Convention in their hands one day or another.”

Jun blinked briefly at him before looking back at the lectern, where Saint-Just had now stepped down and rolled up his speech to shove it into his jacket. The young man then headed straight back to his seat, and thus, Jun diverted his attention from him to focus on Sho, who was now clapping too, but with a funny expression on his face; as if preoccupied, or anxious – perhaps simply contemplative.

 

Jun scrutinized this all with both amazement and confusion; and unbeknownst to him, he was being the subject of intense scrutiny too.

 

 

*

 

 

One might recall that on the day the Bastilles was stormed, Aiba Masaki had saved Ohno Satoshi’s life and had acquainted him out of chance. It so turned out that in fact, those two men had never stopped seeing each other after that incident; and in the span of a few months they had become close friends, attached by the same kind of truthful simplicity and generosity which asked no question and required no answer. The soldier loved those moments spent together, oh, more so than he would ever dare to voice it out… His only chagrin was that, in spite of their wonderful friendship, Ohno continued to hurry back to Nino’s side whenever the lawyer asked for it; and, faithful and loyal even when the younger man was nowhere to be seen, his name was still on Ohno’s lips, sounding sweet, so much sweeter than it actually was, that the tinkles of church bells themselves would not have sounded any safer than Nino’s name in Ohno’s mouth. 

 

Aiba was so tired of that name, that he had slowly grown to hate it.

 

But he said nothing and simply revelled in seeing Ohno smile with those gentle yet strong features of his. Oh, the way his tadpole eyes crinkled and fell when he laughed, the way his thin eyebrows slanted and crumpled like a crescent! He felt like he had an older brother to confide to.

 

On various days, the baker visited him at his family’s cobbler business, and it was on one of those occasions – on the morning of the 17th November 1792, to be exact – that Aiba mentioned his real brother for the very first time:

 

“My little brother too, used to be clumsy with the awl.” he chuckled when Ohno almost poked his own eye out with the tool.

“I didn’t know that you had a brother,” the elder man smiled.

Aiba realised that he had spoken too fast; he stopped and blinked a few times, before looking down embarrassedly.

“That’s true. Well, yes, I do.” he said.

“But I have not seen anyone else apart from your parents. Is he working away? Who is taking over your father’s business?”

 

Aiba smiled bitterly, playing with the awl in his hand. The instrument suddenly seemed odious to him now, he quickly dropped it.   

 

“Let’s not talk about this.” Aiba said, recovering the semblance of a grin. “So, you’re saying that Nino is doing well at the Convention? Is he popular?”

“Oh, I heard people like him very much.” Ohno nodded pensively. “From what Sakurai said, Nino gets along with everyone, and is also a good speaker, though he doesn’t take the floor very often.”

“Do you think he is a good speaker?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know. I have never heard him make a speech in front of so many people!” Ohno smiled warmly. “Though I think I would like to hear him once.”

“Then, why not go and have a listen?” a voice interrupted them calmly.

 

 

They turned around, surprised to see that a small group of men with tricolour brocades over their cardigans were now standing inside the shop, casually looking around. The first man, who had spoken to them, held a pair of damaged boots in his hand and smiled politely at them.

“I’m sorry if I eavesdropped by accident.” he apologized. “It just seemed part of my duties that I should help a fellow citizen in need of information if I could. Though initially, I’ve come to get those boots repaired.”

“Oh, leave them to me.” Aiba took them over earnestly. “I’ll take care of it… Are you a deputy, sir?”

“Yes, we all happen to be.” the stranger chuckled, designating his two companions. “This is Barère. And this, Carnot.” he pointed at himself. “My name is Sieyès.”

“Well, it’s an honour.”

“You said you wanted to hear deputy Ninomiya speak at the Convention, did you not?” Sieyès asked gently. “Why not just go and sit in the galleries one day and listen for a while? It’s for free and citizens are most welcome there. The Convention is a body which opens its heart to the public; it has nothing to hide.”  

 

He looked at his pocket watch.

 

“Actually, it just so happens that we have a promising session coming up this afternoon, if you are interested.”

 

 

 

By promising session, Sieyès had meant Saint-Just’s ground-breaking speech on the judgment of Louis Capet. And because they had nothing better to do, Aiba and Ohno had heeded to his advice. They took some time off in the afternoon to go to the assembly hall’s galleries, listened to Saint-Just’s speech, watched the entirety of the session, and because of that, Aiba noticed Jun’s presence in the Convention. He realised with a shock that the nobleman had now become a deputy. Worse, he saw him sitting close to Ninomiya Kazunari and asking him questions in quiet whispers. He saw him clap at the end of this radical, merciless speech and felt a hole digging in his chest.

 

Wounded, he turned his back angrily to the tribunes and stormed out, with Ohno’s perplexed eyes following him.

“Aiba?” the baker called tentatively at first.

But the younger man left the room without answering, and soon he ran out after him, catching him by the arm.

“Aiba, why are you leaving?”

“I don’t want to stay here anymore.” the soldier breathed, he was red with anger.

“Why?” Ohno blinked. “What happened? Why are you so unhappy all of a sudden? We were just watching a speech…”

“Yes, but he-” Aiba snapped, stuttering. “He was sitting there, amongst the delegates.”

“Who?”

“Matsumoto Jun!”

 

Ohno was mildly surprised that Aiba knew Jun in the first place, for he had never heard him mention the count in the past. But then again, why should they have talked of Jun anyways? And why should Jun’s nomination as a deputy have mattered to either of them? A baker and a soldier could not expect to be directly concerned by politics. Bakers were expected to bake, to feed… And soldiers? They were expected to fight, to obey, to protect. Neither were there to judge – indeed, we had the Convention for that.

 

With a tilt of the head, Ohno looked at his friend and tried to understand without success.

“Why does this bother you so much? Jun is friends with Nino and Sho. They convinced him to become a deputy.”

“He is _friends_ with Ninomiya?” Aiba blinked, feeling the disappointment scorching him alive.

“Yes.”

“But he said he wouldn’t give up on his values!” the French Guard cried out. “He said to me, when we first met, he expressly said…”

“Aiba, calm down,” Ohno soothed him with a comforting hand. “Please. Why do you take this so much at heart? I don’t understand.”

 

Aiba stared at him helplessly, his eyes wavering in alarm. His lips were shaking, as if he felt nauseous. Perhaps he did. He was remembering things, Ohno could see; and suddenly, those things spilled out of Aiba’s mouth before he could stop it:

“My brother.” he murmured weakly. “It’s because this reminds me of him, all over again.”

The elder man furrowed his eyebrows.

“You don’t understand – I know you don’t.” Aiba continued with a saddened face. “But you have to know I was raised in a proper family; we never had any money, but we were decent people. We were _good_. And then, Yuusuke had to go and break everything... He went on the wrong path, stole a huge amount of money from wrong people, and tried to go to bed with the wrong woman; a married woman who was much older than him, and who of course told on him immediately. She called the police after him and everyone we knew called us names for ages.”

“Your brother is in jail?”

“No.” he shook his head. “No. He fled at night before being caught, and that is worse than if he had just repented by going in jail.” Aiba still shuddered at the thought of it all. The disgrace, the embarrassment! To wound the pride of a man of tradition was worse than to destroy him physically. “He should have just assumed responsibility for his acts – what would it have cost him? A few years without liberty, yes, perhaps – but what is that against a lifetime of shame? Instead he decided to save himself selfishly by running away first, and he left us to fend against the humiliation on our own. I wish I could hate him but he is my only little brother, and it still hurts… All of this happened in 1785. I haven’t seen him since then.”

 

By now all the anger in the innocent soldier’s features had already turned to sorrow. He looked at Ohno with beseeching eyes.

 

“Do you understand…?” he said. “When I looked at Matsumoto Jun, I thought I had seen something ‘different’.  I thought I saw something _permanent_ and I was convinced. But now I realise that it was just my wishful thinking again.”

 

A growing hubbub announced to them that the session was entirely over and that people were starting to leave the tribunes. Coming back to his senses, Aiba grabbed Ohno’s hand and quickly pulled him away.

 

 

*

 

 

The next morning, Jun, who had spent his night working in the library, made his way into the Salle des Manèges early, before his two friends. He took his place at the Mountain, giving a quick salute to some of the delegates around him, who replied with a polite nod or a friendly smile. Then as the room filled up, Nino arrived with his mouth hanging wide open, yawning enough to dislocate his jaw as he retied the hanging cuffs of his sky blue outfit. The Montagnards filled up their seats first. The Marshes were the slowest to come.

 

Sho reached the Convention only ten minutes before the start of the conference. As he saw him, Jun skidded over to one side in order to leave the elder man some space to sit down. But against everyone’s expectations, Sho walked straight towards the Girondins’ benches and dropped his papers onto the empty seat next to Brissot, before taking off his coat and installing himself there without a word. Jun leaned forward, baffled; and Nino placed a hand over his chest to push him back.

“Leave him be.” he said very flatly.

 

Could he be mad? The Mountain exchanged murmurs; the Girondins were perplexed. But there he sat, amongst the moderates, tranquil. And to the rows of deputies who turned their heads to catch a glimpse of his impermeable expression, he said nothing.

 

 

“Why did you do that?”

Sho lifted his head from his creaky desk, and blinked up at Jun’s enquiring face above him. They were both in his apartment that evening, since the younger man, having no better choice of lodgings in Paris, now lived with him. With a glass of water in his hand, the nobleman was now looking at him with wide questioning eyes.

“Do what?”

“You know. This morning.” Jun said, making a vague gesture with his empty hand. “At the Convention, you – you sat in the Girondins’ ranks.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re a Montagnard.”

“Yes, I am.” Sho agreed very serenely, smiling as he rolled up his sleeves and dipped his quill into the ink pot. “But temporarily, I shall be a Girondin.”

“Why?”

“Did you hear Saint-Just’s speech and the reaction that ensued?” Sho said. “We all know where this is going for the King… But my conscience tells me it isn’t right, so I’m doing what I can do in a democracy: change my voice to defend what I feel is the correct path.”

 

Jun observed him silently, furrowing his eyebrows. He hesitated:

 

“You want to spare Louis XVI?”

“His life, not his title.” Sho emphasized. “I am an old member of the club of Jacobins, and a patriot by nature. I vouch for the revolution. I cherish it... But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with the Montagnards in every single one of their decisions. My conscience tells me that when a man has already been stripped of all his power, and has been reduced to a state of thorough inoffensiveness, there is no need to make his blood spill on top of everything else. I think Louis XVI the King has to disappear, yes. But Louis Capet the citizen, deserves to be saved from the Guillotine.”

Jun was listening to him with gleaming eyes and said nothing. Perhaps was he seeing Sho for the very first time that night; that man, who had always been nothing more than ‘Nino’s friend’, that man who had always been complaisant and hard-working, to the extent of becoming dull.

“Will you return to the Mountain when Louis XVI’s judgment is over?” he suddenly asked.

“Yes, of course,” Sho reassured, putting his quill down for a minute to look fully at Jun. “By the way, I do not want you to think ill of Robespierre or Saint-Just just because of this occasional divergence of opinion. They have their reasons for wanting the death of the King. Their reasons are sound. They are both great men in their own rights and the fact that I refuse to follow them this once does not mean I think any less well of them…”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jun chuckled. “I didn’t assume anything; nor did I even mention their names.”

 

The elder man blinked, now quite puzzled by himself. He put a hand to his chin:

“You’re right. I don’t know, I just felt it was appropriate to put it out there at the moment. Maybe one day it will become of relevance…”

With a tired hand, he rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock before letting a sigh escape.

“It is getting late, Jun. Perhaps you should get some sleep.”

“And you, you’re not going to bed?”

“I have to finish this report.” Sho shrugged light-heartedly. “It’s not going to finish itself.”

“Always the hard-worker,” Jun smiled and turned towards the exit of Sho’s room.

 

As he reached the door, however, the elder man called him back.

 

“Yes?”

“You know, about that old affair back in 1785. Your…fiancée.”

The nobleman was surprised: “Jacqueline?”

“Yes, I asked Camille DesMoulins about it, and as you know, he has a lot of connections in the press. He said to me that he will search into it and ask around to dig up some forgotten material which might come of use. I do believe he’ll be able to find something.”

“Oh God, Sho. It’s not necessary; there is no trail, no general direction to follow, it’s–”

“No, wait. Listen…” Sho opened his mouth and then seemed slightly awkward, as if stuck on the words. He finally continued: “Lucile, Camille’s wife, has friends who used to work as servants in de Beauriviers’ household, back in the days. And nobles say _a lot_ in front of their servants, as you probably know.”

 

The younger man’s eyes widened slowly; he walked back to the barrister’s desk.

 

“And…?”

“And…nothing much, of course, but what they have told Lucile DesMoulins is that from July 1784 onwards, Jacqueline de Beauriviers was having an affair with someone in Paris – a clandestine relationship with a married man.” Sho seemed apologetic now. “This appeared to be ongoing when she died.”

“A married man…” Jun breathed in sharply, out of disbelief.  “Are you sure of this?”

“Yes, though the servants did not seem to have remembered any names.” the lawyer shook his head, then pursed his lips: “This also means that your fiancée was, uh, cheating on you before you even got married.”

 

Jun laughed good-heartedly at this.

“Oh, I don’t feel too bad about that; it’s not like I was ever in love with her. I found her charming and I found her sweet, but I proposed to her out of convention, not love.” He smiled melancholically. “Which is also why I felt so terrible afterwards. After she left for Finland, I started to think about our situation and realised that perhaps I had done a horrible thing, tying her in a marriage in which she would find no passion. After a while, I decided to stop the machinery before it was too late, and therefore, sent her a letter to break off our engagement. She was so young, so light-hearted; perhaps becoming my wife would have made her bitter and resentful. It would have ruined us both.”

He exhaled.

“She also seemed so frivolous to me, sometimes; too playful for me to handle…Now, I guess I was right about that.”

“Look.” Sho said softly, placing his strong hand over Jun’s forearm. “I know this has nothing to do with me…but I will do what I can to help you find the truth about this case, if you’ll allow me. We now know that this lover of hers was probably the reason behind her mysterious comeback to Paris; maybe he was her murderer as well. There is a trail to follow, Jun. You shouldn’t be in the dark for much longer.”

 

With a glance at the hand on his arm, the younger man watched Sho’s resilient figure in front of him and let out a deep breath. He smiled.

 

“Thank you.”

 

And as he left towards the door again, a last impulse made him turn on his heels and face his friend. “Will you mind,” he inquired. “if I come to sit with you in the Girondins’ ranks tomorrow?” 

Sho looked up at him and shook his head: “Not at all. I’d be most glad if you joined.”

 

Jun smiled, and closed the door behind him as he left.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, one must take a minute to pause on the events which took place in and out of the Convention, in order to take a look at a reedy little man whom it is necessary as early as possible to be familiar with. A reedy and perfidious little man, by the name of Joseph Fouché.

 

A rather unattractive man, Joseph Fouché; not very impressive, and not very gifted when it came down to looks. Ugly as a rat; the best portraits of him today depict him as a sort of fox – if you are generous – or a lizard, to be more accurate. But in spite of his rather unfortunate appearance, it was difficult for anyone to hate this deputy who whispered politely in his floating voice, nodded with gentle interest when you made a speech, and sat discreetly without complaints whilst everyone around him thundered and bit each other to death in the mad race to authority. Fouché used silence to his own advantage. What was the point in barking like a dog, when you could just hold the leash? No one in the Convention was as invisible as Fouché, and consequently, no one was more in touch with the forces of the time than him.

 

For a man of Fouché’s specie, it was natural to swear allegiance to the camp of the strongest at all times. Only the sturdy mob can serve as an effective shield. Upon his arrival at the Convention, the deputy of Nantes had immediately sided with the Girondins, for those moderates appeared to have more influence than the Montagnards in those days; the Plaine listened to them more often. Rumours had it that he had been Robespierre’s sister’s beau at one point or another, but the relationship never flourished into marriage. Probably, either party was thankful for this conclusion. For Robespierre, Fouché’s alliance to the division of Girondins was unforgiveable, a mark printed by iron bars. Having him as a brother-in-law would have been an affront.

 

The Incorruptible was, after all, incorruptible. By contrast, Joseph Fouché was the epitome of duplicity.

 

Nothing could be a better portrayal of Fouché’s character than the day the Convention had finally been forced to vote on Louis XVI’s sentence:  

“Will you vote against death tomorrow, citizen Fouché?” Condorcet, another Girondin, asked him on the evening of the 15th January 1793.

“Yes, of course. That is what my electors want, and I must do them justice,” Fouché smiled softly. “The citizens’ wishes are my own.”

“You do know that the Montagnards are all voting “ _Death_ ” unanimously.”

“Yes, but if the majority of the Plaine sides with us, which I gather they will, then Louis Capet shall live.”

“Have you prepared a speech?”

“Oh, yes. Five pages full, to justify why Louis Capet should not be condemned to death. I shall speak to the Convention tomorrow during the votes, since those have to be given publicly... You know I do not like public speaking, my fragile vocal chords don’t allow it.  But for this occasion, I am making an exception.”

“You are a brave citizen, Joseph Fouché.” Condorcet smiled warmly. “Truly an honest and daring soul.”

 _Daring_ , yes! Honest, not at all.

 

The open votes were to take place the next morning, but during the night, hundreds – no, thousands of protestors gathered around the palace to claim the death penalty for Louis Capet. Those deprived citizens, who were closer to the extremist opinions of the Mountain than to the Girondins, would not have this relic of the past, this half-dead _tyrant,_ live for much longer. Detention would not be enough. They wanted his head. And because all the moderates who ran into those activists were insulted and abused during the night, many a Girondin changed their vote before the fateful day.  

 

On the 16th January 1793, Joseph Fouché knew this and had made his choice.

“Death,” Robespierre announced at the lectern.

“Death,” Saint-Just followed.

“Death,” Nino said indifferently as he looked down at the crowd below him without the trace of an emotion.

“Detention,” Sho proclaimed resolutely.

And Jun seconded him. “Detention.”

 

Joseph Fouché had made his choice. As the deputies passed by and the voices pooled, he counted in his head – being a physics teacher meant familiarity with numbers, quite an advantage. And when his turn finally came around, he walked up to the lectern, gave his friend Condorcet a mocking glance, and said, very calmly:

“Death.”

His five pages of speech? Thrown out of the window hours ago. As for his electors’ wishes – had they ever mattered? Overnight, the influence of the Montagnards had proved its worth to Fouché and he saw no more benefit in remaining on the side of the Girondins now that the balance had been struck.

 

He had now officially become a Montagnard just like Robespierre. With one word, “ _Death_ ”, Fouché began his new career as an ultra-revolutionary, and after backstabbing all his former allies in the presence of 750 deputies,  he walked back to his seat, picked up his belongings impassively, and climbed up straight to the highest seats of the tribunes, to sit amongst his newfound party. This, was the creature named Joseph Fouché.

 

 

 

Louis XVI was thus condemned to death by a majority of the Convention. The 21st January 1793 he was brought to the Place of the Revolution in a wooden cart and hauled up to the scaffold in ominous silence. Back in her cell, in the Temple Prison, Marie-Antoinette cried. Oh, yes, of course she had never loved him like a wife loves her husband, but had he not been her companion, her lonesome companion for all these years; in happiness and sorrow, in sickness and health? Had they not been together since she was fifteen, when she was still just an innocent girl and he was but a clumsy, awkward and plump teenager who only liked to forge locks? She had never felt passion for him. But at least, perhaps, they had been friends.

 

Before the guillotine, Louis XVI turned to face the crowd who had come to see his execution and broke the silence:

“My people,” he said sincerely, “I die innocent. But I forgive those who are guilty of my death.”

The masses looked up at him, found him too dignified to be contemptible. He continued without anger or resentment: “I pray that my blood will not fall back onto this country…” Quick. We started the drums, we covered his voice up; before the crowd could start feeling touched, mollified or remorseful; before someone suddenly decided to rush up and deliver the King upon an impulse of pity. Quick, the executioner pulled the monarch and tied him to the slate before pushing him underneath the blade. As he grabbed the lever, the crowd retained their breath. Amongst them, Jun had his hands on his chest; they were shaking.

 

The blade fell.

 

Jun closed his eyes.

“ _Vive la République!_ ” then came a cry from rows behind him. “Vive la France! Vive la Nation!” The people revived and stared at each other with mixed emotions. _And that’s it?_ they seemed to say. The executioner snatched the former King’s head and showed it to the public, but despite the wave of cheers, no one seemed to be particularly exhilarated. Slowly, the incongruous audience started to disperse, and Jun stood there for a while, alone, pushed by scruffy masons or indifferent shopkeepers. When he finally dared to raise his head again, he thought he saw Ohno walking away from the square with a man in uniform at his side – a French Guard, it seemed. The man seemed familiar. Perhaps he had seen him before, or perhaps was he simply confused by the nauseous feeling gurgling down his stomach.

 

At last, he found the heart to turn his back to the bloodied guillotine. When he left, he lowered his head as he walked and bumped into someone who was coming from the opposite direction.

 

It was Sho Sakurai, who was holding him by the arm, now.

“You were here as well?” the elder man asked softly.

Jun blinked, slightly surprised to see his friend in front of him. He nodded, still incapable of talking, and the barrister looked at him with a comprehensive smile.

“Come along,” he said. “We did what we could, life continues after today. We should go back home and have something to eat, now. Come.”

 

Life continued, indeed. But only a few blocks away, down rue St-Honoré, Maximilien Robespierre sat at his desk, seized by immobility, a glass of water by his side and his quill drying on the paper next to it. Mrs. Duplay, his landlady,  peeked her head through the door of his chambers.

“Maximilien, are you not opening the windowpanes? The weather is beautiful outside.”

He did not stir, and when she took a tentative step to open the windows herself, his voice was but a murmur:

“Please do not open them, Mrs. Duplay.” he pleaded. “We’ve had to do something quite terrible for the sake of the Revolution today, and I do not think I have the strength to watch it happen.”

“But today is Louis Capet’s execution day!”

 

He did not answer, simply joining his hands together on his desk and shutting his eyes as he sighed.

 

 

 

 

That night, Jun came back alone to the place of the guillotine; came back alone and sat by the scaffold’s staircase with his coat thrown over his shoulder and his scarf untied. A thousand thoughts ran across his mind as he stayed in the darkness – solitary soul surrounded only by the peace after the storm. Did he know that Louis XVI’s execution was only a start, and not an end? Did he know that in a few months’ time, the Convention itself would be thrown into a state of Terror where no one would be safe?

 

For now, none of this mattered. With weary moves, he pulled himself up from his improvised seat and strolled away from the Place of the Revolution like an old man, giving up on his title for good, his past, and the person he thought he used to be.

 


	4. Part IV

~*~

 

 

**ACT IV**

   

 

They were now well advanced in 1793. And in an apartment on the second floor at the Rue de Sèvres, Sho Sakurai and Jun Matsumoto were bent over one shared document, the elder writing diligently while the younger watched him work with reasonable interest. He stifled a yawn, for it was getting quite late already; almost three in the morning when he last looked at his watch. But suddenly, a loud knock at the front door pulled him out of his torpor and he hurried to invite their guest in, smiling faintly as he saw Nino’s smirking face in the darkness of the corridor.

 

The lawyer entered the apartment without any decorum.

“Do you have anything to eat?” he demanded instantly and shook off his cardigan. “I’m starving.”

“A greeting would have been nice, too.” Sho sighed from his room, whilst Jun smiled and handed their friend a basket of fruits. “How was the meeting?”

“Brilliant.”

“Sarcastic?”

“Not at all, they are asking for the former Duke D’Orléans’s death in the Jacobins’ club just like everywhere else.” Nino bit into an apple as he threw the cardigan onto the nearest chair. “Poor Duke, who would have thought that all his efforts for the Revolution would have led to nothing but his own demise? I guess you can try to forget your past, but it’ll always come running after you, in the end… How ironic.”

“Don’t laugh.” Sho answered. “Since the abolishment of legal immunity for deputies this year, there have been quite a few convictions within the Convention itself. Those make everyone uneasy.”  

“ _Everyone_ , as in, only the Girondins,” Nino snorted. “As our dear Robespierre says, ‘those who are innocent have nothing to tremble about. Only the conspirators should be scared’.”

He added melodramatically:

“The Committee of Public Safety and our Revolutionary Tribunal, only aim for the traitors, after all.”

 

Sho crossed his arms and exchanged a half-entertained, half-exasperated glance with Jun, who shrugged powerlessly and leaned against the wall:

“And apart from that, any news?”

“Oh, nothing much. Fouché has been expedited on a mission to Lyon to punish the heavy anti-revolutionary protests that have been going on over there. He has been sent with Collot-D’Herbois.”

“Good riddance,” Sho wriggled his nose.

“He’ll come back.” Nino shrugged. “The Brissotists and the other batch of Girondins that were denounced by DesMoulins’ pamphlet are still being tried.”

“No progress on that, then?”

“None at all,” the other man stretched his limbs and stifled a yawn, “to the extent that one wonders whether this is truly the “Reign of Terror” which Hébert has proclaimed so vehemently in his newspaper...”

“It’d be _better_ if this was no Reign of Terror,” Sho scoffed and strayed towards the basket of fruit to choose a clementine. “The Committee of Public Safety’s growing in power despite its young age and is signing more and more decrees of arrest… But it seems rather strange to me that they should be putting so much effort in judging Girondins as traitors of the Revolution.”

“Then, what, should those Girondins be sent straight to the lime pit without a trial?” Nino smirked.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No, of course it’s not.” the younger man granted without sarcasm this time, and headed straight back to the door with two oranges in his pockets. “Alright, I’m off again. Have fun on your own, I am giving you two some privacy.”

“Leaving already?” Jun yawned into his palm.

“I’m only here to drop my report of the Jacobins meeting to Master Sakurai right there,” Nino winked exaggeratedly and smiled when Sho rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you guys at the Convention in a few days. Until then!”

“Take care on the way back,” the elder lawyer called out as his friend stormed out of the room as noisily as he had come in.

 

Once Nino’s steps eventually vanished from the staircase, Jun closed the door once more and looked back at Sho’s sleepy face with an amused smile.

“You look tired.”

“It’s the report I’m writing.”

“Or the report he’s given you.”

“Yes, that too.” he breathed out. “The Revolution has taken a strange turn since the Brissotists and other Girondins were captured on the 2nd June. And then there is Marat’s assassination back in July…All this unrest! It’s a good thing that the Montagnards are the strongest party of the Convention, now, but… I don’t think I am cut out for this, um, _Reign of Terror_.”

He glanced up at Jun for a moment, and regained his countenance.

 

“I am sorry, I should stop complaining about this.”

“That’s alright,” Jun said complaisantly, following the elder man as they returned to his desk. “Everyone has the right to be weary, once in a while.”

Sho nodded without thinking, before glancing up at his friend:

“You are visiting Phillippe D’Orléans one last time in prison next week, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come with you.” the barrister said, then rubbed his face wearily. “We owe him that much, I suppose.”

 

They sat back at the table together and the younger man whipped out a plume, ready to start writing when Sho suddenly stopped and caught him by the arm. He turned, startled.

“What is it?”

“With all those news, I almost forgot to tell you,” the elder man had suddenly turned pale, “that Camille DesMoulins has gotten back to me about Jacqueline de Beauriviers’s case.”

 

For a second, the other deputy stalled, abruptly pulled back from the fiery plights of the Revolution to his own past troubles.

 

“Oh.” he blinked, slightly disoriented. “So. Um, and what did he say?”

“Well, quite a few things, actually.” Sho moistened his lips, his grip tightening around Jun’s wrist. “First, he told me that his wife Lucile had finally gotten in touch with a friend of hers who used to serve de Beauriviers. It seems that when Jacqueline travelled back from Helsinki in June 1785, she was indeed going to see her lover in secret – as we had guessed – but this time, we know that a name was mentioned by her during the trip, so that we now know the lover’s identity.”  he  paused. “Now listen to this: Jacqueline’s lover was the General de la Motte.”

“The General de la Motte?” the other man sat up incredulously. “But…he’s escaped abroad during the Affair of the Necklace!”

“And that is not all.” Sho continued. “You see, as soon as Camille told me this, I went back to check my old files on the Affair of the Necklace. And amongst the testimonies given to me at that time, Nicole Lequay the prostitute had said something interesting... I had failed to take note of it back then, but now I remember, and I’m understanding the implications behind it... Here it is: She said to me that the night the secret meeting was staged in the woods between herself and the Cardinal de Rohan, she had felt _watched_. At the time, she’d dismissed it as simply being Jeanne de la Motte or her husband standing nearby, but then she heard something which sounded like hurried footsteps, as if someone was escaping into the woods…”

“ _Jacqueline_.” Jun murmured. “Jacqueline saw the staged meeting.”

“Yes. Your fiancée knew the Cardinal de Rohan as well as the General de la Motte, so it’s probable that one night, she caught them together and followed them into the forest, unaware that they were actually going to this fake rendez-vous. She must have been shocked by what she saw, especially since she couldn’t know that Nicole was only a prostitute posing as Marie-Antoinette, and not the Queen herself.” he paused and uttered the rest very distinctly: “She must have thought she was onto a royal scandal.”

 

The implications of such a theory were big. If Jacqueline had truly believed in the discovery of a royal scandal, she would have probably blackmailed the Colonel de la Motte and the Cardinal de Rohan with such a crucial piece of information. Even without blackmailing, she would have been in possession of an incredible weapon, a dangerous ticking bomb which could have very well been the motive for her murder. Jacqueline de Beauriviers could have ruined not only the de la Mottes, but also the Cardinal. She could have even damaged the Royal Couple if she wanted, after all.

 

“But are you sure of this…?” Jun insisted. “I mean, how could she have known about the meeting?”

“The secret rendez-vous took place exactly one day before the night she was thrown into the Seine. And days before that, her servant heard Jacqueline complain many times that her “love” was not answering to her messages. She was heartbroken, because she wanted to run away, far away with him, but he was always too elusive. One afternoon, she told that servant that she was going on a little excursion.”

“She was going to visit him.”

“At his work place, yes. And there, she must have seen General de la Motte talking secretively to the Cardinal about God-knows-what.”

“So, out of curiosity, she followed them until late at night; and saw what she should never have seen.” Jun guessed the rest. “And because of this, de la Motte killed her and threw her body into the Seine the next evening…It all makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it _could_ have made sense.” Sho tilted his head with a troubled expression. “Except for one major problem.”

 

Jun stared at him.

“What?”

“De la Motte.” Sho explained embarrassedly. “I was barrister for the defendants in the Affair of the Necklace, so my documents on the facts of the incident are very detailed, and...well, it is true that de la Motte was with the Cardinal on the evening of the secret rendez-vous with Nicole Lequay…but on the following night – which is when Jacqueline was killed and thrown into the river – both him and his wife were out of Paris.”

The younger man was thrown back.

“The forger, then?” he stammered. “Rétaux? He must have done the deed for them…?”

“No. He was with the de la Mottes at the time.” Sho shook his head. “The three of them were celebrating the imminent success of their fraud in another town. And as a witness, we have at least five or six other people who have testified.”

“The Cardinal?”

“Certified alibi, too.”

 

Jun sat back in his chair, hollow, his lips parted and his hands numb. The flux and reflux of information was buzzing in his head.

“None of those three people could have been the actual killer. And the only way we could have discovered more about this affair now, would have been by asking de la Motte or his wife themselves,” the lawyer started.

“But the man has escaped abroad. And the wife has fled from her prison cell years ago.” Jun finished emptily. “Which means…”

“That we’re back to square one.” Sho concluded, with an apology on his face. “I am sorry.”

 

 

 

*

 

 

With the Girondins down and the Committee of Public Safety at the forefront of the political scene, one could have thought that Robespierre and the Mountain would now feel secure, but it was all the contrary. The nation was more unstable than ever and the masses were on fire.

 

“We want the Revolutionary Tribunal to be more effective!” shouted the the rabid ' _Enragés_ ' faction led by Hébert.

So be it: The Convention passed the Law of Suspects, which decreed that anyone could be condemned to death upon a doubt, a suspicious conduct, or even a few words spoken against the Revolution.

“We need Marie-Antoinette’s head to show the royalists that their revolts are useless!” roared Billaud-Varenne.

So be it: The widow Capet was brought in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal, blamed of being the initiatrix of all the ‘crimes’ of her deceased husband.

When accused by Hébert of having molested her own son, the dauphin who had been snatched away from her a few months ago, the former Queen had raised her head with pride, her prematurely white hair falling over her gaunt shoulders, and said: “Nature itself disallows me to answer such an insult directed at a mother; and I call out to all the mothers reunited in this court.” If the move earned her a last spurt of respect, it did not save her from the guillotine’s fangs on October 16th.  

 

Meanwhile, France was getting assailed, not only by its neighbours – which condemned its Revolution with more ardour than ever – but also from within. The royalist revolts in the Vendée region seemed endless. It was a headache to all the deputies of the Convention and to Robespierre in particular, as many groups of deputies were dispatched to calm the situation in the provinces, but positive results were yet to be seen. Saint-Just himself was to leave with deputy Lebas to the Strasbourg warfront on a military mission.

 

It was right to say that in 1793, France as it stood, was a badly patched up vessel struggling to stay afloat in a sea of conflict. As the most influential member of the twelve deputies in the Committee of Public Safety now that Danton was no longer a member, Robespierre thought of ways to keep all the strings together and was growing frantic. The Girondins were one thing, but what of all those new-born factions which were pushing each other around within the Convention, asking for different things, and destroying the framework they had worked so hard to construct? He disapproved of Hébert’s rabid tongue. He disapproved of Billaud-Varennes too, just like he disapproved of the Brissotists.

 

With the Revolution going berserk, he felt like his ideals were being threatened from within.

 

“There must be a way to put an end to all of this. Otherwise, there is no point to any of the things we’re doing,” he groaned one day as his horse-drawn carriage swiftly made its way towards the Tuileries Palace.

On the opposite seat, Saint-Just’s handsome features were staring back at him with their usual aloofness.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said earnestly.

“Yes, the Committee of Public Safety needs you in Paris.” Robespierre smiled weakly. “But I’m sure you’ll be doing a great job in Strasbourg too.”

He sighed as he looked at the running landscape outside, and added:

“Better, perhaps, than the job I shall be doing here.”

 

His eyes were tired, deep and humid, grey with lassitude and his mouth was only a thin and bitter line. Saint-Just watched him and his traits softened:

“You’re weary. Are you thinking of weakening? Like Danton who has decided to take a few weeks of holidays in the countryside?”

 

At this, the light in Robespierre’s gaze revived, and for a second, the grey of steel replaced the grey of rainclouds.

“No, of course not.” he assured firmly, sitting up straight under his companion’s amused look, and flattening the folds of his jacket. “Simply, thinking about the factions irritates me… I lose myself, sometimes. I need to concentrate.”

“Concentrate on more virtuous things?” Saint-Just showed a small smile.

“Yes. And the tasks at hand. First, the trial of the Girondins must absolutely come to an end. And I suppose, since there is no other choice, they must be guillotined.”

“DesMoulins’s newspaper article can serve as the basis of their condemnation.” Saint-Just agreed in a matter-of-fact tone. His own face had regained his usual composure now, cold and impregnable in the narrow confines of the carriage. “As much as I find your childhood friend unimpressive and immature, his articles against the Girondins can be quite useful to us at this point in time.”

“Don’t be so contemptuous of Camille, he’s your senior,” the other deputy frowned, before sighing: “But oh, I suppose you’re right. We really do have a lot of work on our hands.”

“Yes.” the younger man said. “Before we can reset the Revolution on the right track, we must take care of all the factions in the Convention, starting with the Girondins.”

“Then what about the extremists?”

“They can wait for their turn.”

“The indecisive?”

“We rally them to our cause.”

“And the traitors?”

“The Guillotine blesses them. There are no more traitors.”

 

And with one sharp tug of his wrist, he struck out the names of all the anti-revolutionaries listed on a sheet before him. Robespierre shook his head with a helpless chuckle:

“Antoine, you haven’t changed. Always so cynical; and somewhat indecent, like in your book: _Organt_.”

 

At this, Saint-Just raised a pair of slightly surprised eyes.

“You’ve read _Organt_?”

“Uh,” Robespierre stuttered. “No. Well, extracts. Only for the satirical parts, not the…other ones.”

“I see,” the younger man stuttered a bit – a sign so very foreign to him, who was an orator by nature. He looked embarrassed: “How did you find it?”

“Deplorable.” the other cleared his throat, looking outside obstinately. “It’s a good thing you’ve decided to go away from that path, Saint-Just. Your book was…well, it was not virtuous at all.”

Saint-Just smirked softly against his will, rolling his papers up as their carriage hurried on.

 

It had been a long time since they had started running, just the two of them. A long time since they had forgotten to think about themselves, trapped in this mad wheel as they chased after a goal which kept on furthering away…And sometimes, Robespierre wondered if there was a real end to all of this; if the Revolution was truly just a transition, as opposed to a permanent state of being. But then, of course, his logic knew. It had to end somewhere at long last. One day, it had to, and then France, perhaps, his dear France… Ah! Did he dare to think?

 

Soon, with a dreamy smile, he joined his hands over his lap and glanced back at his younger friend.

“Antoine, have you ever wondered how life would be like, once this Revolution is achieved?”

Saint-Just stared at him impassively, not flinching by an inch.

“No.” he said honestly.

And when Maximilien looked into his bright blue eyes, they reflected nothing but the infinity of the sky outside.

 

 

*

 

 

 _First, the Girondins_ , Saint-Just had said so.

 

In this nippy month of October, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety toughened their grip.

 

As convened, Camille DesMoulins’ spiteful newspaper articles against the Girondins, were used as the basis of all the accusations brought against the twenty or so traitors, and the trials advanced much faster now. From behind the curtains, Ninomiya Kazunari watched this unfold and whispered in Robespierre’s ears whenever he had the chance. He had never been particularly close to the Incorruptible – but then again, the Incorruptible had not always been at the top of the Convention. Moreover, that scary bird of prey, Saint-Just, had always been hovering too close to let Nino fare well in his natural element of hoaxes and subterfuges. Now that the youngest deputy of the Convention was in Strasbourg, Nino could have the playground for himself and manoeuvre the other man’s esteem as he wished.

Within a week, Robespierre was already trusting him a good ten times more than he did four years ago.

 

“Still stirring up trouble where there’s none, aren’t you?” Sho grunted at him one day, when they were lunching together. “Are you having fun?”

He snorted and gave an eloquent look:

“Oh. You have no idea...”

 

But meanwhile, there were some who had also started to grow uneasy with Robespierre’s growing power, some who were starting to wonder whether this course of events was truly the footpath they wished to undertake. Jun Matsumoto was amongst those – partly out of anxiety for his and Sho’s safety... But even more notably, it was people like Camille DesMoulins himself who were starting to see the Terror like a bane.

 

For sure, he had been the one writing all those horrible things about the Girondins in his newspapers. _He_ had been the one who, in a way, was responsible for their arrest. But did that mean that he was the one who had wanted them dead? No. No, he did not want anyone dead. He did not want to be a murderer at all. He had enrolled in the Convention to do politics, not to massacre his colleagues by dozens.

 

When October 1793 ended and the Girondins were finally condemned to the guillotine by the Committee, DesMoulins almost fainted, stood up speedily, and with a hand over his mouth, made his way out of the Convention hall in a desperate hurry. 

“DesMoulins!” Sho shouted out to him.

 

But the younger man had already exited the room, making people turn to each other with uneasy looks on their faces.

“Well, that was awkward,” someone said close to Jun; and the man turned around to shush him in a hurry, when he realised that it was not Nino, but some other deputy he had never seen before. With a blink, Jun leaned back towards Sho:

“Where is Nino?”

 But the elder man was just as clueless as he was.

 

 

Outside, in the Tuileries Gardens, DesMoulins splashed water over his face frantically, his hands shaking as he propped himself against the cold rocks of the fountain. He was pale. He was sweating. A presence behind his back made him spin around with fear, but his features suddenly relaxed as he recognized the silhouette behind him as Nino’s figure, who was now smiling softly at him.

 

He inhaled.

“Nino, you frightened me.”

“And you frightened us, friend,” Nino retorted very gently. “You seemed…horrified.”

DesMoulins looked away. And his stammer was back in full force:

“Nino, I…I killed them, didn’t I?” he spluttered miserably. “It’s my articles they used; I’m the one responsible for all those people’s deaths… _Directly_ responsible for all those people’s deaths…”    

“They were going to be condemned sooner or later.”

“Yes, but had I not attacked them all so aggressively in my newspapers…”

“Robespierre, or the Hébertists, would have found a way to condemn them all the same.”

“But don’t you see where all this is going?!” DesMoulins jumped up with his wild gaze. “Don’t you see? That this is becoming madness, that the Terror is only going to get us _all_ killed, that it-”

 

With unexpected brutality, Nino pushed the other man against the water fountain, drawing an astonished gasp out of him. DesMoulins’s eyes were wide open now.

 

“All?” Nino repeated, and his voice was like a knife, cold and disdainful, “I don’t think so, DesMoulins. That is just your wishful thinking.”

“Nino-?”

“You know very well which side to take, DesMoulins. The side which will avoid you the painful ordeal of the guillotine. Or are you too blind to tell? When the truth is so very obvious.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your childhood friend from Louis-le-Grand.” the younger man gave a mocking smile. “Your dear Maximilien. That sweet child, so frail and so shy, so hard-working and kind-hearted…You know it, don’t you? That in the end, he’ll be the only one left. That anyone who opposes him will end up under the guillotine blade and fall into the lime pit.”

 

The dark shadow of those words hovered over their heads for a moment, but at last, the journalist faltered.

“Robespierre isn’t that kind of man.”

“What do you know?” Nino cocked an eyebrow; susurrated very gently, “I am telling you this because you’re a ‘friend’, DesMoulins. We have known each other since law school, and Robespierre is our connection in common. Would it not be a shame that our relationship should end on a bitter note? Especially when your newspaper, the _Vieux Cordelier_ , could be put to such great use in these times of terror…”

 

DesMoulins opened wide and revolted eyes at his colleague, all human colours gone from his thin, oval face. Nino’s voice was like silk, and yet it hid daggers; his eyes were smiling but their shade was obscure like a gaping precipice…For the first time, he glimpsed the lawyer’s true nature and realised that the man in front of him was in fact much more venomous than he had ever imagined. He remembered the young man back in their days at law school, the young disciple from Artois, the one who wrote letters to him, telling him about the meetings of the Rosati association and poking fun at Robespierre’s poems; the son of the deceased but honest mayor, and not this strange creature with gleaming eyes; not this demon in thirst of political power. DesMoulins was lost and did not know what to do. But how could he have known? How could this gullible journalist with grand ideals have ever known that the man in front of him used to, as a boy, cry at the misfortunes which had overwhelmed his family after his father’s death? How could he have guessed that this man, who now walked in the hallways of the Convention and advocated equality for all as an ultra-revolutionary, used to be rich in his youth and had been belittled by all his schoolmates when that wealth suddenly evaporated through no fault of his own; thus creating a lifelong resentment in him for the powerful?

 

Nino hated power… Consequently, he wanted to be have more power than anyone else.

 

“You’re still close with Danton, I hear.” he soon said very neutrally, and DesMoulins flinched at the strange tone of his voice.

“What of it?”

“Well, you know how he is. Too vulgar, too coarse, too brash to be ‘virtuous’.” Nino responded with a cold sneer. “You need to choose your connections more carefully…They could be used against you otherwise.”

 

Properly frightened now, the journalist pushed his colleague away and escaped as fast as he could, while the younger man turned around and called out indifferently:

 

“If you distance yourself from Robespierre now, it is Death which awaits you.”

 

DesMoulins accelerated and fled from the gardens of the Tuileries Palace without another second of delay. He could not face his colleague any longer. In fact, he was too scared to do so, because he had seen something hover above Nino’s head in that fraction of a second before he turned away… He had seen the shadow of a smile. The smile of Death.

 

 

*

 

But when eventually, December came around, everyone had been numbed.

 

What drenched every single tribune with cold sweat during the earliest days of the Revolution was now nothing but lifeless routine. In a recent past, Robespierre felt sick at the very idea of the death penalty, DesMoulins shuddered in front of the men he had sent to die, Fouché himself was a Girondin. Now, the fear still existed, but it was mixed with disgust. The blade of the Guillotine rose and fell like the sun; a tasteless possibility hanging over every man’s neck like a chronic and persistent disease. Fouché executed hundreds of men a day, in Lyon.

 

 

Danton had returned from his holidays in the countryside, newly remarried after the death of his first wife to a young flower who had not even reached her age of maturity. During his retreat, that man had meditated. He had regretted, too. Replete with the somewhat dubious wealth that he had accumulated during his career, he had come back to a Convention plagued by uncertainty and had drawn his conclusions. That man, who had helped the Revolution in its very first steps, that lion heart, who had formed the Committee of Public Safety itself, had suddenly realised that this revolution was no longer what he had originally projected. The child had grown too fast and rebelled too much; it was now necessary to impose limits to it before it became too late:

 

He, along with Camille DesMoulins and their followers, started to lead a faction vouching for clemency.

 

“I ask for the sparing of blood,” he roared to all the deputies gathered in the room, his awful face contracting with emotion, “for indulgence above terror!”

 

 

“But of course, Robespierre will never let this happen,” Nino commented as he skinned his apple, seated at the dining room table of his own apartment. He placed a piece of cut skin on his tongue and glanced with smiling eyes at Sho’s figure facing him. “A faction is a faction. And we all know that Robespierre has declared open war against the factions, whether they are _Indulgents_ , or _Enragés_. Not to mention that clemency at this time would be taking away all weapons to fight the blood-thirsty extremists like Hébert... There’s no way in Hell that Robespierre would allow that.”

Sho shrugged, peeling his tangerine.

“It all depends on whether Danton can convince the crowd,” he said sombrely.

“And whether he can do that fast enough,” Nino sneered. Meanwhile, in the room next door, Ohno busied himself with the fire of the stove, and the crackling sound of ambers acted as a soothing backdrop to their ears. “Who will win first? The Lion? The Tiger? Or the Hyenas? I find all of this incredibly funny.”

“Why, because you’ve chosen your side already?”

Nino looked up, thoroughly amused now, as if the elder man had just told a brilliant joke.

“Me. Choosing sides?” he chortled. “Don’t make me laugh, Sho. You know pertinently well that I never choose anyone’s side. Ever.”

“Well, what do I make of your little attempts to get closer to Robespierre, then?”

“Temporary game. A step on the ladder, perhaps?” Nino returned to his apple after shrugging and passing a finger against the fruit knife’s blade. “Taming the Incorruptible is the most advantageous option in the Convention for now… Any other stance would probably get me guillotined, and I have to say I’d hate dying for no good reason.” he chewed emotionlessly. “So I’m riding on the wave until it washes up onto the beach.”

 

Sho stared gloomily at him.

“You have no convictions.”

“My convictions are realistic.” Nino retorted with a snort. “You, for instance, went onto the Girondins’ side with Jun during the trial of Louis Capet, based on your own definition of ‘conscience’… But did you even realise what that move would make you look like in the face of the Convention, now? Now, you appear to be an Indulgent like Danton. Were you a frequent speaker at the lectern, Hébert would have flamed you to death in his newspaper by now.”  

“Good thing I’m not an influential deputy, then.”

“Oh, you’re always so righteous, always the good man... The brilliant lawyer, the best of the best.” Nino scrunched his nose and made a face. “You haven’t changed much since we met each other back in college, honestly.”

 

For a brief moment, they remained silent, immersed in what seemed like a peaceful remembrance of their history in common. But the peace was short-lived. Soon, Nino broke into a smirk again and lifted his head:

“Say, can I tell you a funny story I heard?”

Sho rolled his eyes: “Go ahead.”

“Don’t be so lethargic, it’s about Maximilien Robespierre,” the younger man leaned an elbow against the table, and tilted his head. “People have told me, that when he was still a kid – after his mother died and his father left the family, mind you – he kept pigeons under his care and tended to them with the delicacy of a nun. But then his younger siblings, one day, asked him to give them one of his favourite birds to keep; and he refused – no, no; you won’t take care of it. You’ll let it die, he said – but they were so unreasonable and insistent, those siblings, and they whined and wailed, and assured him that they would be the best of caretakers… so the generous and kind young Maximilien relented. He gave them the precious pigeon and the siblings jumped up with joy, exhilarated. They were jubilant. But within weeks, the bird was dead: The brats had let it die in a storm. Poor Maximilien, heartbroken, cried his little heart out for weeks to come.”

 

When Nino had finished talking, Sho looked at him with a sombre expression on his face. The younger man was smiling widely.

“Interesting, no?”

“What is?”

“That this child, the child who bawled his eyes out over the death of a mere pigeon, has now sent all the Girondins to the guillotine one after the other?” he shook his head. “Crazy, how people can change with the passage of time.”

 The elder lawyer stared straight back at him and said:

“Or on the contrary, remain very much the same.”

 

At this, the other man’s eyes seemed to flicker a bit.

 

“What do you mean by that?”

Sho softly shrugged, just exhaling deeply and pulling himself out of his chair.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “Anyways, I should go back home before it gets too late. I still have some work to finish-”

“You always have work to finish.”

“Well, what do you know? Maybe that’s just the life I have to lead,” the elder man gave half a smile, which lingered, before disappearing in the tired folds of his features. “And let’s hope that this life still lasts for a little while… ‘Evening, both of you.”

 “Have safe trip,” Ohno waved gently as he let the stove alone and wandered towards the exit to see him off. The elder lawyer walked off with his coat thrown over his shoulder and raised his left hand in a last sign of acknowledgment. 

 

Nino, on the other hand, did not stand up from his chair. The apple he had peeled still laid untouched on the table’s surface. He was biting on a piece of green skin, morose and lost in his thoughts, when Ohno returned to the living room.

 

With the cold of winter, the famine had grown worse and the prices had risen... Hébert and his followers were using this to their advantage – Nino knew. He also knew that Robespierre and Saint-Just were going to do something about it soon. If Hébert and the _Enragés_ had their way, the masses would go wild and the Committee’s very authority would be put into question. As if the Austrian, Prussian and English assaults were not enough…! The last thing they needed now was the internal public chaos that Hébert aspired for.

 

Nino leaned back into his chair and joined his hands in front of his lips as he meditated. In the meantime, Ohno had stopped working and was now changing his clothes, putting on a warmer jacket and mittens on his hands; the younger man watched him distractedly. No, Robespierre and Saint-Just would never let the extremists have their way. Not when the Committee of Public Safety was in their hands. But they would not let Danton have his way either, for if Danton succeeded, the entire Revolution might just sink into the mud of lethargy for good. What of the Constitution, then? How to implement it? No, no, and no. To save the Revolution and to prevent the Mountain from breaking apart, Robespierre and Saint-Just would have to hit; and they would have to hit hard – their _justice_ demanded it. No one could go against the Revolutionary flame. The Hébertists and the Dantonists would both have to be silenced.

 

Nino passed a hand over his chin and stifled a laugh.

 

“Those rabid Hébertists will go first; they’re easier to beat.”

“I’m sorry?” Ohno turned around with droopy eyes.

“Ah, nothing.” Nino shook a dismissive hand, before wriggling his nose at the sight of the former baker, who was now fully dressed to face the dreadful frost outside. “What are you doing; are you going somewhere?”

“I am seeing Aiba,” the elder man said with a mild blink, “you know, my friend from the French Guards-”

“Yes, I know who he is.”

“Yes,” Ohno repeated after him. He smiled a little. “He’s doing a night shift alone in this horrible cold, so I suggested I’d keep him company for a little while.”

“Ah.”

“I haven’t seen him in a considerable amount of time.”

 

The younger man nodded distractedly as he finally stood up and traced a finger over the table’s surface. He then folded his arms over his chest and pursed his lips.

“I didn’t know you still saw him at all.”

“Do you mind?”

“What a weird question,” Nino snorted. “Why on Earth would I care? You do whatever the Hell you want. It’s not any of my business.”

“Right.”

They stared at each other again. Then the elder man smiled once more, and Nino diverted his gaze.

“Just don’t make too much noise when you come back,” he said flatly and returned to his own room.

“I won’t,” Ohno replied, and after another pause, added: “Good night, Nino.”

 

But the lawyer had already closed his bedroom door. Without impatience, Ohno shrugged good-willingly and walked out of the apartment, tightening his scarf around his neck to brace himself against the wind. He locked the door behind him as he left.

 

From the window of his chamber, Nino lifted the curtains a little bit and watched expressionlessly whilst the elder man disappeared into the winter night, bravely facing forward as he sank deeper into the darkness of the small Parisian alleys. He watched until Ohno’s silhouette had entirely vanished; and when it did, his hand let the curtains drop back carelessly – a disdainful jerk of the wrist, which made the fabric flutter against the glass. He sat down at his desk and crossed his arms.

 

He was expressionless. He was calm.

 

 

 

He felt no emotion.

 

Robespierre and Saint-Just had dealt the first axe blow three months later. Hébert and his followers were arrested by the Committee of Public Safety and conducted in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal on 13th March 1794. On morning next, Sho Sakurai was accused in the Jacobins Club of being an Indulgent.

 

“Have you ever seen him lift a single finger to do something major for this revolution?” a meaningless sans-culotte yelled spitefully that day, as Sho sat with his arms crossed on a chair of the overcrowded room. “All he has ever done is to advocate prudence! Oh, yes, prudence, just  like a Dantonist asks for clemency!”

“He belongs to the same faction as them!”

“I advocate prudence because I feel that it’s a trait every deputy should have, regardless of their party,” Sho declared very calmly.

“Yes, right. You sit in the Montagnards’ ranks, but you never talk or push your ideas forward-”

“Because I feel that they’re not developed enough.”

“Excuses!” someone else shouted. “Besides, don’t you all remember? He mingled with the Girondins during Louis Capet’s judgment back in 1792.”

“That’s even worse!” a third man joined in.

“I don’t see why he’s still sitting in the Convention. As it is, the Committee should have written up a decree of arrest for Sho Sakurai already-”

“No!” Jun screamed, shooting out of his chair.

 

The stool fell and crashed onto the floor with a dreadful clonk, and many of the Jacobins assembled in the room turned to stare at him. He was white as a sheet, when Sho’s firm hand came snapping around his wrist like a noose.

“Calm down,” the elder man said in a mere whisper. “This is not an actual charge.”

“But…” Jun stammered. “But they’re…”

“That’s enough.”

The Jacobins slowly turned towards the source of the third voice. It was Robespierre; the Montagnard was standing by the podium, now. He held a handful of the _Vieux Cordeliers_ in his hands.

“This is not what we should be concerned about at the moment,” Robespierre huffed, waving the newspapers heatedly, “what we should really be talking about is _this_. Despite my repeated warnings in the Committee of Public Safety and in the Convention, the author of this newspaper has still not yielded, and continues to write abominations about our wounded Revolution in his articles every day...”

 

He looked gravely at a younger man sitting in the corner of the room.

“Camille,” he said. “It’s you I’m talking about. Are you determined to continue with this ridiculous show, you and Danton, asking for indulgence when you know that it is traitors whom you seek to protect?”

 

DesMoulins scowled impudently, arms folded. He would not yield that easily.

 

“Let me reformulate this.” Robespierre reiterated shakily. “Are you going to stop those calumnies that you publish in the _Vieux Cordelier_ , or not?”

“Are you asking me to stop as Robespierre the Incorruptible, or as Maximilien, my childhood friend?”

For a second, the elder man of the two turned green and his face fell apart; but DesMoulins opened his quivering lips again to utter very clearly:

“You know _very_ well what you’ll have to do, if you want to stop me, Maxime.”

 

And in a second, the room turned into chaos and insults all over again.

“Get all the Indulgents to the Tribunal!” roared the sans-culottes. “They deserve no better than the Hébertists.”

“We don’t need those traitors in the Convention. Guillotine them, they’re dogs!”

“A dog is still worth more than a flea!” countered the few supporters of Indulgence.

 

Next to him, Jun felt Sho move; the elder man was standing up with badly dissimulated haste, and unsteadily heading towards the backdoor. Jun followed suit in a hurry. No one paid attention to them anymore, they were at the gates of the building in no time and with no escort. Once outside, Sho stopped by the staircase of the entrance and untied his scarf with one sharp tug.

 

He was sweating profusely.

“Are you alright?” Jun inquired, forcefully loosening the man’s jacket.

“I am.” Sho answered weakly. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just…I’m just more fragile than I thought I would be.”

He gently pried Jun’s hands away from him and closed his eyes when the younger man stared at him. A bitter smile was playing on his lips.

 

“I thought,” he started, hesitated, then continued: “I thought I was ready to die, like all of them… I thought I was ready to give up my life just like that if needed be.”

Jun let the words ring in his ears for a bit as Sho leaned forward over the balustrade. His eyes were fixed on a vague point in the distance, but his pupils were still dilated with fear. The younger man frowned softly:

“Were you wrong about that, then?”

“I was wrong,” the lawyer admitted at last, “and I’m ashamed. Grand ideals. Convictions…they’re all so good, all so noble, when you don’t have to look at Death in the face in order to protect them…It’s so hard to keep any of that when you have to fight against the most basic feeling characterising human nature. Fear...”

He paused to take a deep breath.

“Back there in that room, Jun…I was scared against my will, though I tried not to show it. I was scared of being arrested. I was scared to die.”

 

Jun took a step forward so that they stood side by side over the balustrade. No one was safe in this assembly anymore, of course, it was evident. The Girondins used to be the most powerful party in the Convention – they were gone. The Hébertists used to be the loudest faction of the Mountain – they were gone too. And not even the Indulgents, led by colossuses like Danton himself, could escape from the Guillotine’s cold embrace – had they ever stood a chance? What _was_ the point of being a deputy in this assembly?

 

“If we die in this mad struggle, at least we know we’ll die an innocent death,” Jun declared after a while.

“But would such a death be worth dying?” Sho murmured in return. The younger man had nothing to say.

 

 

 

Alas! how to choose between ideals and friends? How to pick between duty and sentiments? Justice and pity? As the days flowed by and the 30th March 1794 approached, Robespierre was torn, sick, feverish and tortured in his little room at the Duplay’s house. Nothing would do. He had to be rational, but his heart ripped at him from the inside. Could he not be Maximilien and Robespierre at the same time? Did he really have to forsake Camille to save the Revolution?

 

A knock at the door; Saint-Just walked in with tangerines in his arms and a daisy hanging between his fingers.

 

“Antoine.” Robespierre breathed out at the mere sight of him. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Maxime,” Saint-Just replied tranquilly, as he let the fruits drop onto the table. “I brought those for you.”

“Why, thank you,” the elder man blinked, “I’ve always loved tangerines, but…But what is the daisy for?”

The younger man shrugged, a lukewarm smile softening his handsome face.

“It suits you,” he simply said.

For a moment, the elder deputy seemed agreeably flustered, and he picked up the flower between his nervous fingers as he walked towards the window. Within a few seconds, however, the clouds in his mind resurfaced and his features tightened again.

“It’s no good,” he murmured. “I can’t shake my mind off it, Saint-Just. I feel like our enemies are everywhere. And this business with the Indulgents, oh! Camille, what to do with poor Camille?”

“Are you really asking me?”

“I know what you think of him... But _it_ can’t be the only solution. He’s just being disorientated. How can you be harsh with a child astray? Because that’s what Camille is, in the end – he’s a child astray.”

“So astray that he’s lost, beyond saving.”

“He’s been influenced by Danton.”

“He’s _chosen_ Danton.” Saint-Just rectified grimly, “no one has forced him to become an Indulgent, Maxime…He knows pertinently well that the wealth Danton has accumulated over the last two years cannot be completely innocent… And yet, he’s chosen to side with him. He’s chosen to go against the flow of time and to tie the Revolution down when it is already struggling to stand on its own feet. That – That’s the childhood friend you’ve tried to defend so desperately until now. Don’t you think we’ve done enough for him already?”

 

His eyes searched for Robespierre’s in vain, and a slight tremor tugged at his lips. He placed a hand over his chest.

“Think about it, Maxime.” he murmured faintly. “if I was the one who was trying to bring the entire Revolution down; if I was the one who had been corrupted enough to negotiate with our foreign enemies; shouting for clemency only to protect myself from the eyes of justice; keeping close ties with the royalists and plotting against the Republic…would you spare me?”   

Robespierre turned to look at him.

“But you would never…”

“I said _if_.” the younger man’s breathing was ragged; his face serious. “If I had done all that and then pretended to be your friend…would you still abstain from sending me to the guillotine? Tell me the truth as a deputy of the Convention, Robespierre. Forget your heart. What does your head tell you? Would you forgive me if I was a conspirator?”

“…No.” the elder man was pale. “I wouldn’t.”

“That’s right. Because you are a deputy of the republic.” Saint-Just said. “We represent the people, you and I. We do not represent ourselves; and consequently, we can never let our personal emotions get the better of us. _Those_ people chose posterity... But we, we chose to focus on the present; we have to be terrible for the sake of France as it stands now, and we will be hated for it. There will be no glory for us. We will be the scapegoats of the Revolution.”

 

Robespierre’s features softened a bit, but his eyes reflected both agony and loneliness. What else could have been left except those two emotions, for people like them? They both knew it better than anyone: if they were not the ones to shoulder this hateful, solitary and dangerous task; no one else would.  They were alone, walking down this obscure tunnel hand in hand, blindfolded and unable to retreat.

 

At long last, Robespierre’s shoulders fell and he sketched a melancholic smile.

“You’re right. You’re undoubtedly right, Antoine…And it’s rather funny,” he said, “because citizen Ninomiya told me the exact same thing only a few days ago.”

 

Saint-Just’s eyes widened by a bit:

“Ninomiya…?”

“Well, not exactly the same thing, I guess. To tell you the truth, it’s more peculiar than that; he told me that _you_ would tell me exactly what you did tell me. I guess he’s clairvoyant.”

The younger man stared at him, his expression opaque and strangely serious. For a moment, it seemed he wore the face of a public figure; the face of the one people now called the ‘Archangel of the Revolution’ or the ‘Angel of Death’, and not simply the face of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just.

 

“Robespierre,” he began very sternly, “I wouldn’t be so quick to give my trust to Ninomiya, if I were you.”

The elder man turned towards him.

“You sound…worried about him.”

Saint-Just chortled bitterly and joined his hands behind his back as he faced the window.

“Worried is one way to put it, I suppose – how much do you know about him?”

“Ninomiya? Not much, I guess…That he is calm, quiet, friendly and a little secretive….he used to sit silently without saying much when we were both in the intellectual society called the Rosati back in Arras. I knew him since then, but we never talked much.”

“And after your arrival in Paris?”

“Well, after that I know that he became a lawyer…” he shrugged. “But I don’t really know what he’s been up to.”

 

In front of Saint-Just’s deep concern, the elder man finally questioned himself:

“Antoine, do you know something–”

“It’s alright.” the younger man said. “I’m not going to start anything upon a mere peradventure. If you haven’t felt anything strange in his company, then I guess I shouldn’t interfere. I don’t want to worry you for nothing.”

He looked back and smiled a little, partly reassuring and partly disconcerting under the light of the sun.

 

That was how Saint-Just’s face had always been: pallid, ghostly and melancholically poetic. No one really knew what went on behind those nebulous blue eyes of his. No one knew what thought flickered beneath the fluttering eyelashes. For a second, it seemed that he knew much more than he wanted to let on, but his lips remained sealed with cold resolution in spite of everything. Perhaps he was confident that this was a matter which he could handle on his own.

 

“First, let’s finish the business with the Indulgents,” Robespierre said after a while, because the silence had made slightly him uncomfortable. He threw a pile of documents onto his working desk, rolling up his sleeves to prepare himself for work. And with the same, passive smile, the younger man nodded.

 

“Yes, the Indulgents first.”

 

 

 

It was one thing to say it, but a completely different thing to execute it; and naturally the Indulgents would not go down without a fight. If the Committee were to kill the beast, speed was going to be their only advantage. It was for this reason that a few days later on the 3rd April 1794, during no other time but his shopping hours, Nino learned that the arrest of Danton and his followers had already taken place without his knowledge.

 

“I’m sorry, but what?” he dropped, disbelieving. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous but true,” a deputy called Tallien said to him. “The arrest took place overnight on the 30th March; DesMoulins and all their other allies, captured all at once. The decree of arrest wasn’t even voted by the assembly.”

He was a man nervous by nature, Tallien, and not always on Robespierre’s good books. Corrupted, sly and cowardly; the type of man Nino liked to befriend, but only in the shadows where nobody could see. The barrister laughed and shook his head, glancing at Ohno’s blinking figure next to him before turning back towards his interlocutor.

“I spend a few days in the countryside to see my relatives and this is what I come back to? …Brilliant. When’s the judgment taking place?”

“That’s the thing,” the other man whispered loudly, “it’s taking place right now, at this very moment!”

“Now?” Nino exclaimed in outrage. “But I was told nothing-”

“I know. That’s how sudden the whole process is.”

“It’s more than just sudden, it’s foolhardy.”

“Which is why I am coming now to fetch you, because I think you should like to see it.”

 

One look at Tallien’s expression told him that something unusual was happening there, at the Tribunal. The younger man frowned.

“Is Danton making a scene?” he guessed.

His colleague’s jaw opened, too staggered to utter anything in response. A wild smile slowly coming to his lips, Nino slapped the other man violently on the shoulder and took off without another second of delay, ignoring Tallien’s surprised exclamation and Ohno’s muddled expression. No grocery shopping could be more interesting than this; no daily life routine could be more significant. It had never been of importance that he had assured Ohno of his company today, or that the elder man’s face had lit up that morning when he had promised him such a thing. Neither was it of importance that the baker had flushed with happiness at his sight when he had come home after that week in Arras, or that the elder man had been looking forward to this moment of togetherness ever since his homecoming. After all, Ohno and he could walk down Paris anytime, but the judgment of a Danton? That was a once in a lifetime occurrence.

 

He wouldn’t miss it for the world!

 

Ohno remained slightly lost for a while once Tallien departed in Nino’s pursuit, but did not try to follow. He remained alone on the side of the street, their sacks still in his hands, unmoving, and if he was disappointed, he did not say a thing. It was a smart decision. The younger man would have seen him as a burden had he really tried to follow him, after all. A warm hand soon came down on his shoulder to soothe him, making him turn his startled eyes.

 

It was Aiba, dressed without his uniform, and looking down at him with unusual, brooding eyes.

 

 

 

At the Palace of Justice, the judgment was stalling; the assembly a mess. When Nino reached the tribunal, out of breath and his jacket open, his first reaction was to look for Sho and Jun’s profiles amongst the disordered deputies who had come to watch. The first glance around the room found Sho standing amidst the group of arrested Indulgents – but no. False alert. Upon closer inspection, the elder man was safely sitting in the tribunes, with sallow cheeks, looking very fatigued and uncomfortable by Jun’s side. The two of them seemed like they had not gotten any sleep for ages.

 

In the centre of the room, Danton was a living hurricane:

“Me! A traitor? When I was the man who raised the Revolution up like my own son; when I was the man who created this very Revolutionary Tribunal…!”

 

“What the Hell is going on?” Nino cringed as he pushed his way to Jun’s bench. The younger man looked astonished to see him, but he left him no time to ask pointless questions. “Explain everything to me.”

“He’s been shouting for hours on end,” Sho clarified, “the judge can’t speak. He’s having the floor for himself, leaving no time for anyone to blame him or to shut him up. He is disputing all the charges against him without leaving any opportunity for the Committee to rebut him.”  

“Since when?”

“Damn. Since the start of the judgment.”

“Why?”

Sho stared at him, “ _You_ should know. The more he talks, the more convincing he gets. The more convincing he gets, the less reason the assembly has to accept his condemnation.”

 

Nino churned the thought once in his head and stated:

“He’s trying to raise an insurrection to save the Indulgents.”

“Precisely,” Sho looked back at Danton’s howling figure and exhaled with a shudder, “and he’s doing pretty well until now.”

“No.” Nino refused.  “Someone’s got to stop him.”

 

The two other men frowned at him. And indefatigable, Danton was still shaking his fist at the mob, shouting himself hoarse, roughly slapping Camille DesMoulins’s back when the younger man covered his teary eyes with a strangled sob. Someone had just told the journalist that the Committee was going to go after his wife, too. Poor Lucile had been put on the list of traitors for trying to defend her husband, oh! the brutality of it all!

 

Nino glared back at Jun and Sho with a savage look in his eyes.

“Somebody needs to find a way shut him up before it’s too late, or else, the crowd will really start to pity them.”

“I’m kind of hoping that they do, to be honest,” Sho answered curtly, “it’s true that the Indulgents are suspects of treason, but DesMoulins is still in that crowd and, as a friend,…”

“Somebody needs to _shut him up,_ ” Nino repeated to himself without listening, “ _now_.”

 

He stood unwavering even though his two friends threw him a judging, dubious glance, and when they remained silent, he kept his burning eyes focused on the centre of the hall where Danton was still roaring and thrashing about. One look was enough to tell him that the beast was starting to feel tired. He was sweating. His face was red. His shirt looked about to burst through his exaggerated and dramatic movements. Behind the lectern, the president of the Tribunal looked as squirmy as a mouse, but next to him Saint-Just was a mask of displeasure, severe and irritated. Robespierre was pale and wiping his forehead repeatedly at his seat – the remains of a fever and a flu, possibly.

 

For Nino, all of this was more than eloquent: There were only two outcomes to this stalemate. If the Indulgents won the masses’ heart and got out alive, Robespierre and Saint-Just would go down and the Terror would end. That would mean the death of the Revolution as they knew it, for one, and the start of a universal slowdown. Perhaps the whole course of politics would slump back into a state of pro-royalism and sluggishness, where nothing would get done and where power would be at the hands of the meeker parties – yes, at the hands of those who were too docile to be pushed over, too soft to be annihilated in times of need. On the other hand, if the judgment went through and the Indulgents died, the Terror would be at its zenith; the entire Convention would be hardened into a consolidated state of fear. The weak would be hiding inside the cocoons of the strong. And Robespierre would be the last pinnacle left on the mountain of power; the last titan... He would be the human incarnation of the Convention itself.  

 

Nino weighed the two opportunities and could not hesitate; the most desirable outcome was obvious. People like Sho and Jun only saw this arrest as the harsh demise of a friend, as the downfall of poor Camille DesMoulins. They saw sadness and that was it, but he saw more. Much more. And for the sake of his own ambitions, he could not afford to have the bulk of the Convention’s power fall into the hands of an incorporeal party. He needed power to be gathered into the hands of a single individual whom he could smash into pieces when he needed to.

 

He needed to stop Danton from raising an insurrection.

 

“I have a point of order to make,” Nino raised his hand with vehemence under Jun and Sho’s quizzical eyes. “Point of order!”

The first cry went by unheard, but when he pushed his way back to the bottom of the tribunes and almost stepped into the centre of the tribunal, the judge was forced to look at him. He kept his arm in the air, lips dry, his hair still in a mess. For a second, Danton stopped shouting to frown at him, too confused to speak any further, and Camille DesMoulins stared at him through wide startled eyes.

“Citizen Ninomiya, what are you doing?” President Herman queried as Nino stumbled forward.

“I have a point of order to make,” he declared breathlessly, and designating the prisoners with his thumb, explained: “I want to request that the debates be pushed back to tomorrow.”  

A perplexed murmur went through the crowd, and the president of the tribunal himself looked confusedly at his colleagues.

“I’m sorry, but why…?”

“It’s been a long day,” he continued forcefully. “Look at them. They’re all tired. They’ve been standing there for hours without water, shouting until their voices are hoarse. I suggest to schedule the continuation of the debates to tomorrow, and I suggest that Danton continues to expand on his defence in the morning after a night’s rest. It would only be human to let him do so.”

 

At his seat, Saint-Just sat up straight as his blue eyes focused on the elder lawyer’s speech – he seemed to have grasped something in this incongruous discourse. Nino locked his gaze with his for an instant, and sneered slightly before turning back towards Danton’s perspiring figure.

“What do you think?” he proposed. “It’s only a matter of a few hours, anyways.”

The corpulent man only blinked. Yes, he felt confident. A few hours would not make a difference, he thought. There was no visible malice in this young man’s childish face.

 

Indeed, Nino was smiling sweetly at him as he spoke once more:

“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to talk again tomorrow.”

 

 

 

As soon as the president Herman declared the suspension of the debates, Sho and Jun hurtled down from the tribunes in order to search for Nino’s face, but the lawyer had already vanished into the deeper wings of the tribunal to look for someone else, discreet and furtive like the wind. As soon as he and Saint-Just saw each other, they hurried towards a corner of the corridor and faced one another determinedly.

 

“What was that?” Saint-Just inquired immediately. “I assume you have an idea, otherwise a man like you would not have spoken.”

“Is that all I get for trying to help? Gee, Saint-Just,” Nino snorted. “You really do deserve your nickname of ‘a cold beauty’.”

“Are you on Robespierre’s side?”

 

Nino only smiled.

“We don’t have any time to lose in pointless conversation.” he then said. “I wasn’t lying when I said that this business was only a matter of a few hours... You and the Committee now have those few hours to go and speak in front of the Convention. By tomorrow morning, a new piece of law, or decree, has to have been voted and approved by the assembly.”

The younger deputy scrutinized him lengthily without speaking. The glint in his eyes told Nino that he had understood where this was leading to, and indeed, he never asked for the content of the said decree.

“Why are you doing this?” he interrogated instead. “What’s in it for you? The arrest of Danton and DesMoulins, their deaths, the advancement of the Revolution itself…what reason do you have to support it?”

 

Again, Nino smiled and tapped the tip of his shoe against the floor, twice, very gently.

“In politics,” he started, “there are two kind of men. Those who achieve success by climbing to the top, and those who achieve success by counselling the ones who climbed to the top.”

He shrugged in front of Saint-Just’s serious face.

“Not hard to know which category I hope to belong to.”

 

The younger man studied him quietly for a long time, before finally drawing back by an inch. His expression had not changed.

“I won’t say anything else today. As you put it, there isn’t time to lose in pointless conversation,” he paused, “but remember, Ninomiya…The second category of people you just mentioned also includes people like citizen Fouché. Don’t ever forget that.”

 

He left very swiftly, with his undeviating sense of purpose and his unbending resolve, leaving Nino alone in the shadows of the echoing hallway.

 

The next morning, a new decree had been voted by the Convention, containing only three clauses in it. Out of those three, the last article stated that any conspirator attempting to resist the authority of national justice, could be kept out of the debates by the president of the tribunal for an indeterminate amount of time:

 

Danton, DesMoulins, and all the other Indulgents had been muzzled overnight.

 

As he realised the consequence of his mistake, Danton’s arms fell to his sides, palms open and skin whitened. There would be no insurrection to be arisen now. No defence to expand on. They had been tricked; manipulated. Played with. The lion fell onto his seat and covered his forehead with his giant paw:

“Better be guillotined than a guillotiner,” he murmured at last, giving up to weariness.

Meanwhile, Camille DesMoulins blasted his rage against the frightened tribunes; howling with tears of fury.

“Traitor!” he screamed. “Scoundrel, villain, scorpion! Murderer!”

 

But were those screams thrown against his childhood friend Robespierre who had condemned him? Or against somebody else?

     

That evening, Nino came out of the tribunal with a satisfied grin, but a dim and odd discontentment in his heart. The affair of the Indulgents had come to a successful close and the fully loaded cart would leave to the guillotine in another few hours at most. However, when he had seen Sho and Jun earlier that day, they had not seemed as ecstatic as he was by Danton’s condemnation, and he had found no echo to his triumph. Sentimentalism was a weakness, indeed… Never mind, the three of them were going out for dinner together tonight, and the affair would be forgotten. Sho had said that they would meet him near the entrance of the Revolutionary Tribunal around eight; he would just have to wait. Just like always, he was one step ahead of them. One step more ruthless, one step more successful. He could obtain anything that he wanted.

 

Yet, there was a stain on his perfect canvas, an irritation he could not shake off…Ohno had continued his regular meetings with that soldier from the French Guards for four years now. Aiba Masaki: A brainless, underdeveloped, poor excuse of a man; and yet, such a thing was standing on equal grounds with him in Ohno’s eyes. The preceding evening, when Nino had come home after his brief interview with Saint-Just, he had been greeted by nothing but a note left on the kitchen table, informing him that the elder man was to dine with Aiba and that he would not be home for the night. He had stabbed the paper with iron tongs after crumbling it into a ball, and diligently roasted it above his candle fire to exhibit his spite. But the irritation had not subsided. Ah, the things he would do just to make that soldier’s name disappear!

 

Nino strolled down the staircase outside the Palace of Justice and pulled his tie loose as he discerned a rigid silhouette standing watch next to the statue below the stairs. He stopped. A few other deputies walked past him, bumping into him by accident as they descended, but he did not move, taken by an inexplicable burst of indignation. He pursed his lips and unconsciously jutted out his chin, as defiance took over. The man next to the statue, wearing nothing but a simple white shirt and dirty brown slacks, was the very person he despised the most at that very moment. They had not met face to face for years, and yet each of them felt that they knew one another as well as if they had been seeing each other on a daily basis.

 

Nino hurtled down the stairs and clenched his hands into tight fists as he faced Aiba Masaki’s lanky figure.

 

“What are you doing here?” he inquired coldly, and Aiba glared back just as glumly at him when he noticed him.

“Long time no see,” he greeted bitterly instead. “Haven’t seen you since the Place of the Revolution incident in 1789, if I remember well.”

“I’m not interested in reminiscences; I asked you why you are here.” Nino cut him dry. “Not on soldier duty, I can see from your clothes. And not a coincidence either, your eyes tell me the contrary.”

“I had to speak to you.”

“Speak to me?” Nino cocked an eyebrow.

Unimpressed, he snorted and then gave the soldier a disdainful once-over before frowning.

“Now, how did you know my whereabouts to start with? Ah, no – Wait, let me guess. Ohno must have told you…He must have informed you of my entire schedule, that idiot of a man.”

“Don’t call him an idiot.” Aiba grinded as he stepped forward, and to Nino the defensiveness of his tone was a hundred times more irritating than his aggressive posture. It was the tone of a possessive man; a man who felt personally offended by a pique thrown at another person over whom he felt he had some kind of right. With renewed impatience, the younger man glared and scoffed:

“What is this? Are you his bodyguard?”

“No. But I am his friend.”

“Ah, yes!” the lawyer laughed cynically, “Yes. Ohno has told me everything about your _heart-warming_ friendship. I had tears in my eyes by the end of it, though more out of boredom than anything…Are you here to tell me to treat him better, perhaps? Oh. Yes, I’ve hit the bull’s eye, apparently – your face is too transparent. So, let me see. He’s complained to you about how I’ve dumped him in the middle of the street yesterday, and now you’re here to lecture me about how I should be a nicer person...”

“He hasn’t complained to me,” Aiba growled dangerously, “he hasn’t said anything about it. I _saw_. And let me tell you this: I don’t care whether you’re some influential deputy in the Convention or not. I don’t care that you’re an important lawyer when I’m only an uneducated soldier. You don’t deserve him.”

“Are you judging me?” Nino smiled in disbelief, boiling. “ _You_?”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“And you think you hold the universal truth in your hands? Jesus Christ…You’re wasting my time.” he waved his hand. “If Ohno had any sort of complaints against me, he would be big enough to bring them up to me in person without you acting as his babysitter. He’s not a kid and he’s not mute. So, get out of my way.”

 

Aiba snatched his wrist and pulled him back towards him when he tried to walk off, while his other hand went straight for his collar. For a fraction of a second, Nino thought that the elder man was going to punch him, but Aiba simply glared at him instead, lips tight, a hiss of anger mixing with misery escaping through his gritted teeth. It was surprising that they had not come to hands before this, for polar opposites like them could hardly be expected to get along from the very start. Nino was nothing but cold calculation; by contrast, Aiba was nothing but hot impulse…They could subsist peacefully as long as distance kept them out of each other’s sight, but now that time and space had brought them into the same vicinity, the clash was inevitable.  

 

“I don’t care what you think of me,” Aiba uttered at last, lowering his head, “but I’ve had enough of Ohno being mistreated by you for absolutely no reason. He’s not your toy. So stop treating him like one.”

Nino remained silent, his eyes a dark pool of contempt. Then out of nowhere, he chuckled and said:

“You, not caring about what people think of you? Really…?”

 

Aiba slowly raised his eyes.

 “Come along, now,” Nino grabbed the elder man’s hands, clutching them in an iron grasp, his eyes glowing forebodingly. “You, not caring what others think of you; that’s the most preposterous thing I’ve heard all day. _You_ , not caring about public image and reputation - Ha! Lying is a bad, bad thing to do, Aiba Masaki.”

“What are you talking about?” the soldier faltered with a sickly glower.

“Don’t think that I don’t know.” Nino scoffed icily. “Did you believe that with Ohno hanging all the time around you, I would not do my research? I’ve asked around…and I know everything I need to know about you now – Your brother still hasn’t come home after that scandal he caused, has he?”

 

At those words, the French Guard’s face turned ashen and his grip on Nino’s collar constricted, his hands trembling as the lawyer flashed a smug grin:

“Can you still say that you don’t care, Aiba?”

“How did you…”

“It’s not about _how_ I know, but _what_ I know.” the deputy clawed into the other man’s arms spitefully. “‘How’ is easy, I asked around. ‘What’, on the other hand, is a _lot_. I know that your brother tried to fornicate with an older married woman nine years ago before running away from Paris when she called the police to arrest him. I know that he has been doing dirty jobs for nobles and stealing from people prior to that, and that as a man of tradition, you still feel deeply ashamed of him because of that. I know that you feel utterly disgraced, because everyone in your entourage knows about his deeds and silently mocks your family behind your back. I know that you are still looking for him and hoping that one day he’ll come back home, so that you can wash your family’s name of the dishonour he’s given you.”

 

He smiled even more mockingly when Aiba’s lips started to shake.

“I also know that the married woman’s name was Mrs. Fouché, wife of citizen Joseph Fouché, who has been sent last year to punish the anti-revolutionaries in Lyon by death. And do you know the best?”

He triumphed when Aiba’s eyes wavered and he whispered:

“I know what even _you_ don’t know: that your brother has run to Lyon in his blind escape by a pure twist of fate…and that now he’s getting _shot_ by Fouché like an underdog, tied up with hundreds of other condemned citizens as Fouché and Collot-D’Herbois fire cannons at them to kill them in masses like insignificant _insects_.”

 

Aiba’s punch flew in too fast for him to process, and when he recovered his senses again, he was on the floor, the soldier already straddling him, beating him on the face repeatedly before shaking him with thoughtless violence.

“You’re lying!” he was screaming to the top of his lungs. “You’re lying to me!”

“It’s all in the reports from Lyon,” Nino coughed between two hiccups. Was his nose bleeding? He tried to move, in vain, and scorned hatefully: “Whether you believe it or not, your brother’s already on the list of reported deaths.”

Again, Aiba’s fists collided with his cheekbone, making him gag. The soldier was knocking him against the floor when alarmed voices turned around the corner, and hands started to haul them apart. Nino felt Sho’s arms supporting him and pulling him up, and through his swollen eyes, he saw Jun restraining Aiba’s furious body, the French Guard still shouting and howling nonsense as he flapped his arms.

 

“Calm down,” Jun ordered, though he had yet to grasp the meaning of the whole situation. “I said, calm down. Stop it, both of you.”

“I won’t calm down,” Aiba shrieked in return, his eyes glowing like those of a cougar, “leave me alone. Let me go!”

And with one violent push, he shoved Jun away from him, then turned almost green when he finally saw the younger man’s face under the moonlight. Nearby, Sho was still helping Nino to stand on his shaky legs, the lawyer’s lip bleeding from a ferocious blow. His face was livid. Sho raised one hand carefully in the soldier’s direction:

“Alright, let’s keep it cool,” he began pacifyingly. “All of us. Come on, now, uh-”

“…Aiba,” Nino completed viciously through the blood on his tongue. “That’s his name.”

“Right,” Sho swallowed hard, “Aiba. Calm down. I don’t know what’s going on here, but fighting is not the way to resolve anything.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” the other man rumbled. “You’re all double-faced hypocrites, hiding yourself behind a screen of good words. And you,” he pointed at Jun, his entire arm still shaking. “You’re a liar. A liar, Matsumoto… A liar who’s abandoned all his principles just for convenience, a liar who’s made me believe that you were someone great, someone righteous and noble, when you were nothing more but a coward. What was all that about not wanting to beg for your life through degrading behaviour? In the end, it didn’t take you all that much to abandon your title and to join the ranks of anti-royalists, I see!”

 

Suddenly, Jun’s face changed, and it seemed to Aiba that the younger man had finally remembered him; which hurt him even more because it meant that he had been forgotten until now. Until the end, he was nothing but a petty soldier, without honour, without relevance, without anything. He wiped some of the grime on his hands and choked on the remains of a sniffle.

“For years, I actually believed the words that you said to me.” he poured out grudgingly. “I believed in you and respected you…To you, I was just another insignificant soldier that you’d met one afternoon in the garrisons of the French Guards, and like that, I was nothing. But to _me_ , you were different from all the rest and you were important. You were important because you made me think that there was something called dignity in this world. I looked at you and believed that you were so much stronger than I was…But I was just being delusional. You were weak like the others. You were disappointing.”

Jun stared at him, wordless, struck by both horror and distress. He was paralyzed, his jaw refusing to unlock itself, refusing to let him utter a single word. Soon, Aiba bit down on his lower lip and waivered the need for any explanation.

“Forget it all.” he said. “I was too naïve, and that’s all there is to this.”

“Aiba,” Jun finally croaked.

 

But nothing. Under everyone’s shaken eyes, Aiba turned his back to all of them and swiftly walked off into a different alley, leaving the three deputies out of words, next to the emotionless statue of the Palace of Justice. Nino followed the soldier with resentful eyes until he completely disappeared, still fuming as he covered his bleeding lip with a quivering hand. Next to him, Jun staggered a little and let out a deep breath he did not know he had been holding.

 

Perhaps was it the vestige of a past he thought he had forgotten… but he suddenly felt strangely cold now; and strangely uncertain. Shame crawled through his veins. He felt sick. For the first time in a long, long while, Jun wondered if all the changes he had undergone until now had been worth it, in the end.

 

 

 

Later in the night, Aiba Masaki dragged Ohno out of his house and begged for him to leave Ninomiya’ side. The elder man seemed fretful. He was puzzled, he did not understand. But Aiba was shaking his head, clutching Ohno’s wrist so tightly that it almost hurt.

 

“At least move out from his apartment, then,” he pleaded, pale and feverish, his voice cracked. “Please, I’m saying this for your own good, I just don’t want you to suffer anymore…”

“Why do you think that I’m suffering?”

 

The younger man seemed deaf to his confusion.

 

“Please listen to me,” he was a wounded stag, rearing and breaking down under Ohno’s astounded eyes, “listen to me – Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe me? I don’t want to hurt you, Ohno; I would never want to hurt you.”

“I know that you wouldn’t, Aiba. But I never said that you did; I just…don’t understand.”

“Leave Ninomiya, please.”

Ohno shook his head resolutely.

“What happened to you today?” he prodded.

“Why do you ask all the wrong questions?” Aiba replied with overpowering despair. “Please, just trust me for once, Ohno; I don’t think I can keep up with this any longer, I won’t bear it. If you care for me, if only a little bit, then I beg you to leave Ninomiya’s side before it’s too late.”

 

And then, Ohno recoiled for the first time, feeling like the young soldier had just given him an unpleasant and forceful choice. His posture tensed up, his expression turned troubled as he slowly shook his head again. He wondered why Aiba had to make everything so dramatic all the time, it was needlessly confusing and complicated, not to mention unsettling.

 

When he tried to draw back, Aiba grew frantic; his grip tightening like wires around Ohno’s hand.

“I’m begging you,” he shouted. “Ohno, if you don’t distance yourself from him now, it will be too late. He will go over the limits and no one will be able to stop him…”

 

But Ohno found himself thinking that Nino and Aiba were kind of similar, in a way, and that it was all quite sad and ironic that they did not try to understand each other more. With an apologetic expression, he freed his hand from the other man’s emprise.

“I am sorry, Aiba.” he said. “I can’t.”

The soldier’s body looked ready to crumble.

“You don’t understand,” he tried again, this time with contained tears of frustration in his eyes, “Nino will end up badly. He is going to push again and again, and he is going to cross the line and destroy all the people around him until he becomes nothing but a vicious beast…”

“I am sorry,” Ohno repeated simply and took a few steps back. “I am really sorry.”

 

Aiba watched him retreat with wide, terrified eyes; and it took the elder man more than a valiant effort before he could finally tear himself away from the guard’s agonizing gaze. He left – hastily, in spite of the vague guilt in his heart – and the younger man did not latch out to stop him physically, this time.

With the violence that comes with dejection, Aiba simply gave one last yell: “He will become a monster! A heartless, inhuman _monster_ who will ruin the lives of everyone around him, once and for all!”

 

His outburst was welcomed only by the stifling silence of the night, and soon, he had to lean against the wall of the nearest building, covering his face, to weep silently into his hand, weep until he had no breath left. He was empty. So horribly empty that even his tears tasted like dust on his dried up lips; and so lonely that a part of him wanted to die. Perhaps, he thought, now that Ohno had left, a part of him was dead already.

 

 

*

 

 

Miles away from this unfortunate scene, citizen Joseph Fouché boarded a horse carriage from the mutilated town of Lyon and set off for the Convention.


	5. Part V (End)

 

~*~

 

 

**ACT V**

 

 

When Fouché came down to visit Ninomiya Kazunari at his domicile in April 1794, he was a doomed man and a murderer. A murderer because of the zealous obeisance he had shown to his duty in Lyon: The anti-revolutionaries over there needed to be chastised, the Convention had said. So chastise them he did; tied them up in groups of two hundred, in the middle of an empty field, and fired myriads of cannon balls at them without stopping until all of them were pummelled to the ground. He had been unscrupulous. Rigorous. A true revolutionary to the core.

 

A doomed man, because he had made an error of judgment. In executing 1,667 men within one year, Fouché had not acted out of cruelty or passion, but out of the cold conviction that this was the best way to obtain the recognisance of the entire Convention. Was he not, after all, showing dedication and drive by sending all those traitors to their deaths? Was he not accomplishing the duties of a proper revolutionary and should he not be rewarded for that? He had not expected to be hailed back to Paris in a voice which spelt out trouble. Furthermore, he had not expected to find out that Danton, and all his past allies from the influential side, had all perished under the hands of Robespierre…Now _that_ , that was an error of judgment. Robespierre was a puritan and Robespierre had arrived at the top of the Convention in the span of a year. Robespierre disapproved of his actions in Lyon and saw him as a source of disgust, a rotting limb in the wounded body of the Convention. In fact, it was very probable that Robespierre wanted him dead.

 

The sickly man that was Fouché climbed up to the lectern as soon as he returned to Paris and made a desperate attempt to justify himself. But he was ignored by the assembly. They refused to look at him and did not dare to take his side, too frightened to make a single move. Fouché had furtively visited the Incorruptible after that, but was rejected again without any hesitation, sent away with not even the slightest sign of sympathy.

 

His expression unchanged, the deputy of Nantes now came out of the Duplay’s house unfazed and put his hat back onto his head, as if he had just been dismissed after a pleasant cup of tea. The hour was approaching midnight. With noiseless steps, he moved into the shadows where he felt more comfortable, and travelled down towards the apartment of deputy Ninomiya.

 

 

 

“I know what you’re here for.” Nino declared very flatly when Fouché sat down in his old sofa while he leaned against the windowsill. “You’re here for information...”

“I want to know the details of what happened in Paris after I left for Lyon.”

“Well, you’ve probably guessed it. Robespierre has made the Convention bow to him.”

They looked at each other, and Nino smiled.

“Danton has been guillotined and so has Camille DesMoulins. The Hébertists are now dead. The Girondins too.”

“But not you.”

“No. Not me. Of course, I don’t take sides easily.”

“So what’s left?”

“The Robespierrists.” The younger man counted. “And the cowards.”

 

The conversation stopped temporarily when Ohno quietly came in to place their tea on the table. The interruption was brief, but Nino’s expression darkened imperceptibly as his eyes lingered over the other man’s back. Once Ohno had left, he lifted the curtains of the window behind him and glanced outside, frowning as he distinguished the familiar silhouette of a man lingering in the street below.

 

It was Aiba, who had not stopped coming to his window since their open confrontation from a few days ago, not saying a word, only standing there, on the footway. And despite his presence being an eerie nuisance, Nino had not done anything to stop it from happening. He had not said a word to Ohno either. Now pulling the curtains close, he turned back to Fouché, who folded his hands over his skeletal legs and was saying, as if talking about the weather:

“I suppose that Robespierre wants me dead.”

Nino made a rictus:

“I wouldn’t be able to say. You’ve played very badly this time around, Fouché; your audacious performance in Lyon would have been popular with the Hébertists, but not with Robespierre. You’re usually good at sniffing the tide before it floods in. But this time, the game is going to be tight.”

“Tight, but not bolted,” the physics teacher responded. “You said there were cowards in the Convention.”

“Masses. Just well hidden.”                              

“Names?”

“Tallien.” Nino answered plainly. “Barras, Vadier, Carnot, Billaud-Varenne, Fréron,  and too many others to name.”

“Well, that’s more than enough to play with.” Fouché smiled thinly and took a sip of his tea. For a moment, the younger man watched him drink in silence, but soon his eyes narrowed distinctively as realization struck him.

 

“You have a plan against Robespierre.” And the guess was as much a statement as a speculation.

“No. I just have an urge to save my life.”

“But you have an idea on how to do that,” Nino snorted. “You wouldn’t have asked for names otherwise. You wouldn’t have come here to start with.”

“I came because I knew you’d give me information.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you’d be interested in taking part, if ever there was a plan.”

 

Fouché turned his reptilian head and planted his glassy eyes into the other man’s, smiling almost pleasantly as if the lawyer was the one who needed a favour. The impudence made Nino drop a dry laugh. He leaned back comfortably against the windowsill and stretched out his legs:

“So what made you think that I would be interested in making Robespierre fall? He trusts me. I don’t need to fear for my life just yet.”

“ _Just yet_. You said it well.”

“So why would I be interested?”

“Because you and I are from the same species.”

Nino gave a smirk: “Then do you know that people from our species can simply throw each other to the wolves, as soon as the storm ends?”

 

After a silence, Fouché nodded and smiled as well. “Naturally.”

 

 

They did not talk again for the next few months. There was no need. Fouché, in fact, appeared and vanished from the Convention sporadically from April onwards, like a ghost that haunted the corridors in the oddest hours of the day, whispering intrigues and escaping as soon as anyone compromising saw him. Robespierre had attacked him mercilessly in one of his speeches at the Convention, but the man had not balked. On the 6th June, he managed to get himself elected as President of the Club of Jacobins; the very symbol of the Revolutionary heart. Furious, Robespierre stumbled back to his house with a fever, falling sick from outrage. But Fouché was not the only source of his worries. The Cult of the Supreme Being had just been celebrated on the streets of Paris a few days ago, a festivity recognizing that the human soul was immortal and that a form of superior being was to be venerated, like an elevated form of God. He had been pushing the movement for months, but now that the cult had finally become a reality, he felt disheartened once again.

 

He knew what people whispered behind his back. He knew that they called the Cult of the Supreme Being ridiculous; murmuring that it was just a way for him to achieve dictatorship, that all of it was a joke, a farce, a theatrical piece. And parts of him wanted to scream at this infamy, because it was untrue; because it was so much grander than that, so much purer and so much more honorable. Why did no one understand that the Terror could not end before people’s morals changed for the better? Why did no one understand that virtue, and virtue alone, could save France from its demise?

 

Alas, nothing; nothing was ever virtuous enough. What he expected of men, perhaps God Himself, and only God, would have been able to achieve it. In the meantime, the distressing lack of virtue on Earth continued to drive Robespierre’s hand as he pushed mountains and mountains of heads under the guillotine blade. If nothing else, at least he was doing some cleaning through the Convention ranks. Oh, how those seats reeked of conspiracy these days!

 

 

“You can’t expect everyone to understand,” Saint-Just told him one evening as he stomped to and fro, from his bed to his wardrobe, his hands behind his back. “This kind of things take time.”

“But we don’t _have_ time, Antoine, don’t you see?” Robespierre hissed. “Every day, the Convention festers with more traitors. Fouché is at their head…Yes, he is the one nudging them all from behind, I just know it. And yet, there is no proof. No proof! And I am forced to let him get away with this ignominy, just like that! Ah, the injustice of this assembly!”

“Fouché is not the only conspirator in the Mountain.”

But the other man did not listen.

“The Committee of Public Safety is no better, it doesn’t even deserve its name anymore.” He ranted on. “It is divided. It has been polluted by people’s petty ambitions. Carnot’s thirst for war…Billaud-Varenne’s unstoppable thirst for violence…All of them will lead us to our end.”

“We have Couthon on our side.” Saint-Just said. “And Lebas. And your little brother Augustin.”

“Will they be enough?” Robespierre turned, red and desperate. “Will they be enough to open up everyone’s eyes before it’s too late? It’s been two months that the Committee started opposing anything I had to say, without a good reason. They’re trying to isolate us...to isolate _me_. And you, you are setting off for the front lines tomorrow evening again…”

 

Saint-Just’s eyes wavered. He blinked and stalled, realizing that he was going to leave his friend alone in this turbulent Paris for about another month, before finding his cold composure once more:

“There is a man you might want to consider. Sakurai Sho…”

“Sakurai?” Robespierre frowned, shaking his head. “No. No, no, he can’t be trusted. He was with the Girondins during Louis Capet’s trial, he was indecisive during the Indulgents’, and even now he refuses to take sides. No. I cannot confide in him.”

Saint-Just bit his lips.

“Then where will you seek support?”

“The Club of Jacobins…they’re the only ones who still bear the true revolutionary spirit, and the only ones who have never let me down. The sans-culottes…”

“Robespierre, you cannot always seek comfort from the Jacobins, they are not the representatives of France.”

“They understand the values I am trying to push through.”

“They cannot make the law and you know that you will not be able to unite the Committee of Public Safety if you just hide yourself behind them-” 

“I am not hiding,” Robespierre barked. “I  am not hiding behind _anyone!_ ”

 

Both of them seemed startled by this sudden spurt of temper, the younger of the two more hurt than he would have liked to show. After all, he had never been fustigated like that in the past, let alone by the man he respected the most in the entire world. Saint-Just pursed his lips and looked down at the floor, wounded in his pride, while Robespierre regretted his anger before it had even finished subsiding.

 

“I’m sorry, Saint-Just.” he mumbled. “Sorry about that.”

“Maxime, I am saying all of this for your own good,” the younger deputy murmured for all reply. “I cannot help you when I’m out there on the battlefront. But I don’t want you to isolate yourself like this, especially when unison has never been more important in the Convention... France needs you.”

“You don’t need to tell me this. I am not isolating myself from anyone, and Fouché is the only person I really have to be careful of.”

“He isn’t.”

“It’s enough,” Robespierre sighed, weary at last. “It’s enough, Antoine. Let’s finish this discussion here.”

 

The tone he used was final like a full stop to a sentence, and Saint-Just found no strength to go against it. Inside, however, a strange fog started to cloud his system. It was the rational side of his mind speaking against his heart, telling him to step back before it was too late. Robespierre was blinded and exhausted, staying by his side would be perilous, dangerous, the best way to get themselves killed if things took a turn for the worst. So why was he still here, standing in front of this weakened man, supporting him with all his strengths, following him like a shadow waning in the falling obscurity? Why could he just not bring himself to leave him behind?

 

“I’m going to go back to my apartment,” he said with his usual tranquility, searching the elder man’s eyes one more time. “I will keep you updated with my progress on the warfront, and bring you a victory if I can.”

Robespierre nodded weakly, his face still wraithlike under the candlelight.

 

At last, Saint-Just closed his eyes and turned away, closing the door behind him as he left the room. He took his coat back from the Duplays’ hanger, threw it over his shoulders and walked off into the night with resolve, straight and rigid as always, as his boots resonated dissonantly on the pavement. He found no more room for doubt. If there was one thing that he could not give up for the sake of logic, it was the allegiance he vowed to those he respected and cherished. If he could not cure Robespierre of his blind naivety, he would save him through other ways. He would destroy the man’s enemies, he would annihilate the factions one by one, he would face the entire world in an open confrontation if needed be. But at all costs, and not matter what happened, he would never betray Maximilien Robespierre. 

 

 

*

 

 

“Good morning.” was what Saint-Just said, when _they_ finally met face to face the next morning. And there was no surprise in the other man’s eyes when he stopped in his tracks, mid-way through the vestibule of the Convention with its high-ceiling and resonant walls. There was no perplexity, no bewilderment on that juvenile and odious face. Yes. _He_ had been expecting this visit for a while too, now.

 

From behind his thin, black hair, Nino grinned at him in open mockery:

“Good morning, Saint-Just,” he greeted back with his hands in his pockets, “Anything that I could help you with?”

The younger man took a deep breath and cleared his throat:

“Joseph Fouché,” he declared. “Giving me his current address would be a good way to start.”

Nino’s smirk faded into a vivid manifestation of outright confusion.

“I don’t see why you think that I’d know his address. He’s kind of a ‘wanted man’ at the Convention at the moment, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” the other retorted. “And I suggest that you tell me his whereabouts right away, if you don’t want to become a wanted man yourself.”

 

Nino smiled again.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m giving you advice. In fact, I don’t have the energy and time to deal with you, deputy Ninomiya, so if you could just stop with the pretenses...”

“Oh, you’re not playing anymore, are you?” the lawyer chuckled and swayed on his two heels, “very well, I shall be sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a single clue on Fouché’s current whereabouts. We haven’t spoken for months.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Why would I lie to the Angel of Death? Besides, I wouldn’t dare to mingle with the likes of Fouché anyways. He’s a rascal, a villain and a traitor. Isn’t that what he is?”

 

Saint-Just abandoned all signs of courtesy and thrust the elder man up against the wall.

 

“Don’t think I was joking when I said you’d become a wanted man, Ninomiya.” he warned in a low and dangerous whisper. “I know what you’ve been up to. I know you’ve never been on Robespierre’s side and I know that you’ll never be.”

“Very good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean per se that I must be on Fouché’s side either.”

“A man like you can hardly be on anyone else’s.” the younger man snorted. “Now, tell me what he is preparing to do. At once.”

“Or else?” Nino squinted. “You’ll guillotine me? My records are clean. You won’t find a single stain in my personal history to file a satisfactory accusation against me: I have never mingled with the Girondins, I have never sided with the royalists, I have never done anything to support the Indulgents and I have never approved of the Hébertists. Actually, I have always been on your dear Robespierre’s good books even without being a Robespierrist, and contrarily to what you seem to think, Fouché and I are in reality very different types of people.”

“You’re right.” Saint-Just laughed coldly. “You’re different, indeed, and worse than him by far. I know that he plays for the love of games, and that he is a snake that slithers to the top, attacking only when he is threatened. But what are you? You who sting from behind, you who betray for the satisfaction of betraying first, you are a wasp; a vulture; you don’t even want to reach the top; you play this game for the simple pleasure of defying authority.”

“I bring authority to its _knees_.”

 

The younger man’s eyes widened slightly, and Nino waited for another moment before sneering: “Look at you, Saint-Just. Always fighting for justice and equality. Always believing in your grand devise of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”, riding on your white steed called the Convention, bearing the noble sword named the Committee of Public Safety… Has it ever occurred to you that other people are using the same public bodies as you, but for their own trifling ambitions? Everyone climbs the ladder of authority to satisfy their own greed, Saint-Just. Only you and Robespierre are too blind to see that. You’ve been making your way up without stopping whilst keeping your eyes on the pure blue sky above your heads. But now, everyone’s been gathered at your feet, greedy eyes looking up at you with hatred and envy, ready to kick the ladder from below you at the slightest moment of inattention...and you are still refusing to see the truth.”

The younger man’s face was livid and his lips quivered.

“People’s morals will change,” he pronounced haltingly. “There will be no traitors left in this Convention.”

“No, you’re right,” Nino agreed with a cynical smile. “There are no more traitors in this Convention as of now, in fact. But nor are there heroes. The grand struggle for freedom is already over, Saint-Just. What is left, is the fight of the miserable for survival.”

 

In that moment, all their cards were spread onto the table. All the masks were dropped.  There were no more pretenses, no more chase in the dark; and for a second it seemed to Nino that everything he had ever done for the past ten years culminated into this very moment of pure triumph. A moment of victory; where he held the leaders of the country in his own palm, free to crush them if he wanted to. He was the sole vanquisher of this bloody war, the only beneficiary of this intricate trust; and his smile was wild, _wild_ with exhilaration, until the second he noticed the two freezing blades gleaming in Saint-Just’s blue eyes.

 

His smile slowly waned from his face.

“What?”

“You think you’ve won.” the younger man said, his fist still clutching his collar, “but I will prove you wrong. The Committee of Public Safety can still be united if Robespierre calls for it. And you, Fouché, and all the other conspirators of your species, will have to answer for your crimes as soon as things are back in their original order.”

“I told you my records were clean,” Nino scoffed, “you won’t find a single sin to charge me with in the things I’ve done for the Convention.”

“But if I said: ‘ _bribes’_ , and ‘ _whispers in the dark’_ …”

 

At first, Nino only stared at him, not sure that he understood what the younger man was referring to. Then, the truth flooded back, and within a second, fear was the only feeling left in him.

 

“How…?” he spluttered, eyes wide open, and Saint-Just cruelly mimicked his surprise:

“How, indeed?” he laughed. “Nothing to be proud of. You might have heard that in my teenage years, I ran away from home and tried to survive on my own for a little while? Well, I saw and learned a few interesting things back then, whilst attempting to earn some money here and there...I ran across someone quite interesting as well. Someone running a rather dodgy business in Paris-”

“Stop.” Nino breathed, sweating.  His eyes were burning with hatred. “You bastard…”

“You thought those times were too far to catch up with you now,” Saint-Just responded coldly, “but let me tell you this: Justice knows how to be patient. And it has been patient enough with you already.”

 

He let go of the elder man and left him leaning against the wall, his face as pale as a sheet. The lawyer’s entire body radiated with fury, indignation, and dread at the thought of this brand new pawn on the chessboard. His heart was pounding.

“Saint-Just, if you dare…”

“Watch me.” the younger man spat back. “You started this first, Ninomiya. I can take scums and scoundrels, but I will not allow them to stand in the way of the purest man of the Convention. If you want to touch Robespierre, I will run you down first.”

 

Nino watched him go with both revulsion and mad surprise, his nails digging hatefully into the rock of the walls. He remembered the emotions he had felt when meeting the younger man for the first time in the Convention. Respect. Scorn. And fear… He should have known back then already, that one day their cages would both be open, and that on that day, they would be unleashed into the same arena to beat each other to death. Now, there was nowhere left to hide. The wasp would have to win against the tiger; and to do that, speed and cunningness were going to be his only ammunition.   

 

 

*

 

It was not the Terror that reigned, but disgust. In July 1794 people whispered that the Incorruptible had stopped going to the Committee of Public Safety, since a brawl with members such as Carnot and Billaud-Varenne had led to accusations of dictatorship and tyranny against him. Offended in his hypersensitive heart, Robespierre would have shouted an aggrieved “Save the nation without me!” to the gathered members in the room, before leaving the chambers and disappearing into the Duplay’s house to sulk within his own world. He had not come back to the Committee since then, notwithstanding the general assembly’s mockery, who took his retreat as a strange sign of weakness, and the whim of a spoiled child.

 

Rumours also had it that anonymous letters were now being sent to Robespierre’s letterbox regularly, to warn him about the growing conspiracies against him. Saint-Just, who had returned from the warfront for the second time with a glorious victory named Fleurus, was back by his friend’s side and more zealous than ever. Yet, in those days approaching the fated day of Thermidor 9, some people noticed a slight change in the younger man’s attitude.

 

His talks were more composed, he behaved more cautiously, advocated the urge for unison and harmony even where Robespierre refused to cooperate. Many times, and without relenting, he tried to convince the Incorruptible to come back to the Convention and the Committee. But the elder man refused. He would not budge in his moping, not until someone came up with an official apology...

 

But the conspirators only mocked.

 

“He can stay in his room all he wants,” Carnot grumbled to Tallien and Barras as they sat on a bench outside the assembly hall. “Having him away gives me more room to breathe without his overwhelming Virtue anyways.”

“His virtue! Oh yes, tell me about it…not to mention his pride! ‘Your Majesty Robespierre, would you like anything to drink? Would you like some coffee? Some biscuits? And a little bit of wine, too?’”

“Wine, my ass. He probably doesn’t drink anything but clear water,” Barras leered. “Wouldn’t want to pollute his insides with alcohol, would he?”  

 

They laughed. And because disgust reigned, no one felt the need to counter those mocking remarks apart from the few true Robespierrists such as Couthon, who scowled in his wheelchair, Lebas, who had always had a softer heart, or Augustin, who was Robespierre’s own little brother.

 

And then there was Jun…strangely. Jun, whom we had almost forgotten. Jun Matsumoto, the former nobleman who had been pulled into the mad folly of the Revolution a few years ago, Jun Matsumoto, who had never dared to make a single speech in the assembly hall of the Convention. Jun Matsumoto, who had always felt a pang of guilt at the very thought of sitting with those deputies from the Third Estate and Jun Matsumoto, who now felt that he owed something to the young soldier from the French Guards named Aiba Masaki, for he had let him down when he had never wanted to do him harm. Jun Matsumoto had also grown to respect the man he now lived with, Sho Sakurai, and those who had stuck by their own convictions to the very end. Those, like Camille DesMoulins and Danton, who had died for their principles; those, like Robespierre and Saint-Just, who were still fighting for theirs.

 

It was this newfound respect which eventually impelled him to turn around upon hearing those derisive comments against Robespierre, instead of continuing his path with Sho through the corridor. Not knowing the future consequence of his acts, he stopped by the connivers’ side and threw his documents into Carnot’s lap, making all three of them jump in their seats and look up at him with bewildered eyes.

 

“What the Hell are you doing?” Barras blinked.

“Giving him work,” Jun declared aloofly, “Obviously Carnot doesn’t have enough, since he’s here gossiping about Robespierre with you, instead of focusing on the things that the Committee of Public Safety has to do.”

“What did you say?”

“I said the Committee is going to go redundant if all it does is to loiter around and gossip about one of its most important members.”

 

By Jun’s side, Sho blinked too, seemingly surprised by the younger man’s sudden outburst. Carnot and Barras glared. Tallien scoffed and slapped his thigh in outrage:

“That’s rich, coming from a former noble!” he exclaimed. “What have you guys done for all those years except loitering around while the masses worked their asses off, huh?”

“You think you can save your life just by flattering Robespierre?” Carnot added through his nose.

“I am not trying to save my life,” Jun retorted dryly, “and I am not trying to flatter Robespierre. But clearly, despite all his flaws and all his shortcomings, he is still better than the three of you combined.”  

 

Sho laughed and Carnot immediately turned red:

 

“You little bastard!”

“It’s enough, Jun,” Sho held the younger man by the arm. “You’ve had your fun.”

“Well, I haven’t had mine,” Carnot growled, starting forward when Barras suddenly caught his wrist, his gaze fixated on something to their right. They all turned, and both Sho and Jun frowned when they noticed Fouché’s gaunt figure standing by the marble column, smiling eerily at all of them. Since when had he been standing there? He had a pile of little envelopes in his hand and more rolled up documents under his arm. Upon seeing him, the three conspirators immediately cleared their throats and stood up from their bench, dusting themselves like children caught after a brawl. Before leaving in Fouché’s direction, Carnot turned around one last time to glower at Jun.

 

The younger man held his head high and kept his eyes on the Committee member and Fouché, who was now discreetly handing out some of the envelopes to Tallien before counting another few and distributing them to Barras. Sho grabbed Jun by the hand and slowly pulled him away from this odd-looking scene.

 

“What are they doing?” the younger man inquired as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Probably something to assist Robespierre’s fall,” Sho answered grimly. “The envelopes he had. They looked like lists.”

“Lists of what?”

“Of victims…” Sho replied. “Lists of condemned people for the guillotine.”

“But what could a list like that do to facilitate Robespierre’s fall?”

 

The elder man did not reply, unsure of what to say. The truth was that such a list could do a lot based on the names it contained and the people it was given to. However, neither Jun nor Sho were aware of this fact yet.

 

“Have you seen Nino recently, by the way?” Jun asked again as they came out of the Tuileries Palace. “I haven’t seen him much at the Convention these days.”

“No, you are right. I don’t think he is present, to be quite honest.”

“What is he up to?”

“I…”

 

Sho shook his head, closing his eyes. The skin of his hand felt clammy against Jun’s own, and the younger deputy could not help but frown.

 

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” his friend nodded right away, “yes, of course. It’s just the heat. The heat of July.”

“Don’t get sick,” Jun furrowed his eyebrows and pushed the hair back from Sho’s forehead. “With a weather like this you could easily get a heatstroke, and that’s one of the last things you would want to get. Come along, maybe we can find Nino in the pavilion if we look hard enough…”

 

 

 

The date approached the 26th July 1794, also called Thermidor 8 in the Revolutionary calendar.

On the afternoon of the said 26th, Robespierre walked up to the podium of the Convention, his small grey eyes glaring at every man of the assembly in turn, and read out the speech that led to his destruction.

 

 

 

 

 

“I do not seek the support or the friendship of anyone in this assembly,” the Incorruptible declared in a cutting, unwavering voice. “I only listen to my duties, and only see a world populated by dupes and rascals…My existence alone is an object of fear to them. ”

 

When the assembly retained its breath, Robespierre continued with this theatrical speech, weary and melancholic: “Why remain in a state of affairs where intrigues constantly triumph over the Truth? How to bear the torture of seeing this horrible succession of traitors, over and over again? My reason, my heart itself, is on the verge of doubting this virtuous Republic of which I had drawn the map... For we do not even have the merit of having undertaken great tasks for virtuous motives.”

He then accused the two Committees of being inefficient, of being divided. He missed their past good deeds and mourned for their current state of disunion. And yet, at last, he declared ominously that:

“The number of rascals is actually the smallest number in this assembly. It is only them whom we must punish for the crimes and the misfortunes of the world.”

 

The congress waited, raptured, terrified by the anticipation of the names to come. Who would be the traitors named in the Incorruptible’s deadly speech? Who would be the next batch, and perhaps the final batch, to be sent to the guillotine? They waited, their hearts in their throats, wondering if the first name would be theirs.

 

Nothing came.

 

Suddenly, Robespierre became silent. And Jun and Sho soon eyed each other as murmurs started to emerge within the petrified crowd. A voice elevated itself above the hubbub and faded again. “Who?” someone dared to ask at last. “Who are they, those traitors?” But even as Robespierre rolled up his speech and ended it for good, no names were published. The identity of the traitors remained anonymous.

 

And then, every piece in Fouché’s plan came together at once, and the glass shattered.

 

“I protest,” a deputy cried furiously, “I ask for names to be cited, or no speech to be printed out.”

“I agree with this objection,” Billaud-Varenne jumped out of his seat and pointed an accusing finger at Robespierre’s tensing figure. “This man here, has dared to accuse every single one of us by refusing to name anyone as the said culprit. By his unreasonable silence, he is condemning all of us to die.”

Then suddenly, even the inert deputies of the Marshes came back to life, shouting and roaring like frenzied extremists: “We want names! We want names, or no speech to be adopted!”

“If you want to brag about being virtuous, you should at least be virtuous enough everyone to tell the truth!”

“We need to hear names!”

“Names! Now!”

In front of this ocean of exasperation, the Incorruptible found himself stranded on his pedestal, flabbergasted, forced to put down his discourse in a hurry and to leave the room under the crowd’s jeers.

 

He was humiliated.

 

Fouché, without even being present in the hall of deputies, had raised an army of opposition to hit the tiger in the face.

 

Now, the tool to such an insurrection? Information and lies. Nothing more. The envelopes that Fouché had given to the conspirators – which had been transferred to every other deputy of the Convention, may it be Marshes or Mountain, – had effectively been lists of prospective victims. But they had all been fabricated. Fake lists; containing the names of each and every deputy whom it had been given to, as well as Fouché’s own, thus communicating the following ominous message to all of them: “You are dying next.” All the men who had received a copy of the list prior to the 8 Thermidor had cowered in fear at the thought of being of the next batch. They had waited for their name to come out with terror in their minds and had felt that terror turn into indignation when Robespierre had failed to identify any culprit. Fuelled by both fear and anger, they had stood up to protect their own lives and had taken the upper hand.  

 

With only a few papers and a network of cowards, Fouché had beaten the Incorruptible at his strongest game: Eloquence.

 

 

As Robespierre stumbled out of the hall, Saint-Just seized him by the arm and pulled him into a dark corner, eyes glazing.

“Why didn’t you consult me?” he questioned instantaneously.

“What are you talking about?” Maximilien frowned, still pale and frustrated.

“Your discourse. It wasn’t what we convened. You promised that we would advocate accord and coordination between the Committees once again; you promised you’d come back to the Committee of Public Safety and that everything would be fine…”

“But _nothing_ _is_ fine,” Robespierre interrupted, eyes gleaming with despair. “Didn’t you see how things went on, in there? How can we pretend that everything’s fine, when everyone’s obviously ready to break all the rules? There is no unison in this assembly.”

“We have to at least try…”

“Try to do what?” the elder man shouted. “To pretend? To play the game? To believe in a lie?”

 

Saint-Just stared at him, feeling utterly helpless for once. His gaze did not waver, as per usual, but his lips were pursed so tightly that it hurt.

“Maxime…”

“Tomorrow,” Robespierre exhaled heavily, his hand on the younger man’s chest, “Thermidor 9. I need you to go to the lectern, and give them the list they were asking for. We’ll give them what they want: Names. Fouché, Tallien, Barras, Carnot and Billaud-Varenne. Fréron too. We’ll name them and condemn them to the fate they deserve.”

 

He sighed and wiped the sweat off his clammy forehead.

“After that, the slate will be clean again. And we’ll be able to build back the precious constitution we worked so hard to achieve. We’ll be able to continue working on our ideals and to build a better future for France.”

“Maxime.”

“We’ll be able to achieve what we initially set out to do, Saint-Just.” he turned towards his friend with distressed eyes. “Please…Don’t let me down. Not now. Antoine, I am going to need you more than I have ever needed anyone in the past. Please…Stay with me.”

 

Saint-Just opened his mouth, trying to shake his head, but his body refused to obey. His hands were cold when they fell back to his sides. With a weak smile, Robespierre stroked the younger man’s jacket one last time before letting out an airy “Thank you.” He was over his limits already; that much was obvious. And Saint-Just tried to hold his hand tightly for another moment before separating, but his own grip was frailer than he had imagined.

 

Letting go, he nodded at last and watched as Robespierre’s face illuminated one last time, before the elder man spun around, walking out of the hallway with his documents underneath his arm. It was five o’clock. Five o’clock on Thermidor 8. Robespierre was going back to the Jacobins club and Saint-Just had a few hours before him to write up the critical speech that Robespierre asked of him. He had another few hours to practice it at the pavilion of the Tuileries Palace, and then, ‘tomorrow’ would come. ‘Tomorrow’, their fates would be sealed.

 

He could not let Robespierre down now. Not now, not ever.

 

 

 

The other person who had obviously benefited from the grand opposition on Thermidor 8 was Nino, and he made it a point to show off this fresh victory to his sworn enemy. In the night before Thermidor 9, Nino scurried to the Committee’s meeting room under Collot-D’Herbois and Carnot’s invitation; and Saint-Just, who was writing at the furthest table when he walked in, raised murderous eyes at his sight.

 

“What is he doing here?” the question was glacial but composed. “The Committee of Public Safety is supposed to be secluded from outsiders.”

“It’s not like we’re doing anything secret at the moment.” Carnot scoffed. “Unless you’re writing something that you wouldn’t like us to see, Saint-Just.”

“Are you writing up our decree of arrest?”

“What do you think?”

 

Collot-D’Herbois and Carnot both froze, and Nino sneered. Barère, the leader of the Marshes, who was seated close by, glanced up briefly and lowered his head again. As the youngest deputy of the Convention slowly returned to his text, Collot-D’Herbois lost his nerve and latched out at his papers.

 

Saint-Just snatched them back immediately: “What are you doing?”

“If you’re constructing my decree of arrest, then at least, I have the right to see it with my own eyes!”

“Don’t be silly,” the other man scoffed. “I’m writing up my report to the Committee, that is all. Though there are largely enough crimes in your records to make you a dead man if the Convention wanted it.”

“He’s lying.” Carnot growled. “I saw him chatting with Robespierre after his speech this afternoon; he’s thinking of convicting us as soon as the morning comes.”

“Let me search him...”

“Stop it,” Barère stopped them abruptly, looking thoroughly embarrassed, “we’re all deputies of the Mountain here. It is absolutely ridiculous to tear each other apart like this.”

“He started it!” Collot-D’Herbois was enflamed. “Him and his master of a tyrant…”

“I have no master,” Saint-Just cut down like an axe, standing up with all his stature. He then emptied all his pockets in front of his two tormenters, and proudly threw their contents onto the table surface. Letters, notebook and crumpled minutes. His eyes were fixed on Nino’s while Carnot and Collot-D’Herbois flung themselves onto the documents like hungry hyenas.

 

There were no decrees of arrest.

 

“Satisfied?” Saint-Just glared, unhurriedly tucking the documents back into his jacket, one by one.

The other deputies raised their heads with skeptical eyes.

“You’re not going to condemn us like Robespierre wants…?”

“What Robespierre wants is _unison_ , not condemnations. He wants the best for all of us, and that’s what I am going to ask for tomorrow: Unison.” he buttoned up his cardigan and pushed past them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

 

Nino followed him with his ever watchful eyes and pursed his lips.

“Where are you going?”

The younger man halted, turning his head with just enough delay to show his distaste: “I am going to finish up my report elsewhere. Obviously, this place has become overpopulated overnight.”

“But then, how can we be sure that you won’t be writing up that decree of arrest after all?”

 

Carnot jumped. He clutched Saint-Just’s arm and shook it until the younger man winced.

“You have to stay and finish it here.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything. Now, let me go.”

“Not before you promise us to finish your God damned speech in this room, with us.”

“Or else, show us your speech tomorrow morning before presenting at the Convention.”

“What?”

 

But Collot-D’Herbois was nodding vehemently in agreement now, and Saint-Just found himself frowning at both of them in turn. They were scared. They were terrified dogs, bearing their teeth to hide their vast, cosmic and bottomless fear. At last, Saint-Just felt his expression slacken.

“Fine,” he spat after a long time. “I will consult with you in the morning before presenting it.”

“In the morning, before ten.”

“Yes.”

“And if there’s anything we don’t like, we will strike it out.”

“Yes, alright. Now let me go,” he pulled his hand back and rubbed his painful wrist. “I’m off.”

 

Perhaps he thought that Nino would find a way to stop him again, for he lingered a little on the doorstep before finally leaving the room. But Nino had already recognized the outline of a new possibility in his head. Opportunistic and forever addicted to mind-games, he decided to keep his mouth shut for now, and instead, followed the younger man out into the night, going as far as to wait for him outside in silence whilst the other deputy finished his discourse inside the pavilion. He intercepted him only in the early morning, near the woods, when Saint-Just was about to take a last mind-soothing walk before the fateful hour of this 9th Thermidor. He had yet to show the critical speech to Collot-D’Herbois and Carnot, as he had promised.

 

Saint-Just did not look surprised to see Nino when he did.

“I knew you’d do something before the clock struck ten,” he said, still passive and calm. “Are you here to try to manipulate me, like you so enjoy doing to other people?”

“Manipulate _you_? No,” Nino shook his head. “No, no, you’re shatterproof, manipulating you would be – unfortunately – impossible… I am just here to have a peek at your speech before Carnot and Collot-D’Herbois get to see it.”

 

They studied each other carefully, a moment in which the younger man did nothing to pull the said discourse out.

“Did you really write nothing on the traitors that Robespierre mentioned?” the lawyer soon squinted.

“Are you curious?” Saint-Just scorned, “because I remembered promising something to Carnot and Collot-D’Herbois; nothing to you.”

“Oh, but are _they_ really getting to edit your speech, though?” Nino mocked, now. “Them? The traitors Robespierre wants dead? Them, the corrupted conspirators?”

“As I said,” Saint-Just reiterated sternly, and syllable by syllable, “Robespierre is not after people’s deaths.”

“Ah, but that’s what you say.” Nino opened wide, talkative eyes. “We heard him very clearly though; he literally condemned the entire Convention without saying any names yesterday. Everyone felt threatened, and I don’t think Fouché is helping very much.”

“Fouché.”

“Yes, Fouché. He sent lists to everyone this past few weeks…fake lists, of the people that Robespierre wants under the guillotine, including Fouché himself. The Mountain, the Plaine… no one is exempt from fear, now. _That’s_ a manipulator, wouldn’t you say?”

 

Saint-Just closed his eyes and seemed to repress the urge to send a flying punch in the other man’s face. He rubbed a hand against his neck and sighed:

“Listen, Ninomiya. Why are you really here?”

“To have a peek at your speech, like I said.”

“But you’re not going to get it.”

“Yes, probably not. But Carnot and Collot-D’Herbois are, aren’t they? Such a critical speech, and yet, you’re letting them the honour of editing it, meaning you must be confident about that speech’s content. Now I am starting to believe you when you say that you’re not going to name any traitor… Am I to believe that you’re leaving Robespierre’s side, too?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“But does Robespierre know what you’re about to do?” Nino smiled with malice. “Did you show _him_ your speech, for instance?”

 

Saint-Just stared at him, impassive. In his eyes, Nino saw the questions swirl, the wavering string of a doubt, the exciting indication of an emerging hesitancy. He saw Saint-Just evaluate him and he saw him try to figure him out… But there were things that Saint-Just’s hawk eyes would never be able to notice, things that were too vicious for puritans like him to foresee. Men like Robespierre and Saint-Just were invincible in face-to-face confrontations, but when it came down to the dusky, black world of ants, they were hopeless. Saint-Just sensed danger coming from this loathsome man, but he was unable to give it a precise shape.

 

“There are reasons, practical reasons, for which I am showing my speech to Carnot and Collot before Robespierre, Ninomiya.”

“Yes. Of course.” Nino smiled. “And I am sure that Robespierre would understand, too, if he knew that you placed those two before him.”

“If you’re thinking of telling him…”

“I’m not going to do anything.” he raised his two hands innocently, grinning when Saint-Just squinted distrustfully at him.

 

With a sweeping motion of his arm, the lawyer cleared his throat and spun around.

“If you’re not going to let me see your speech, I’m going. We’ll see each other later at the Convention.”

“Ninomiya.”

“All the best,” Nino said slyly, turning back one last time. “Break a leg.”

 

He hopped away from the pathway, disappearing behind the finely cut scrubs and the greeneries, and knowing very well that behind him, Saint-Just was biting his lips as he fumed, suspicious again after all this time. At ten o’clock, Nino was in the meeting room of the Committee of Public Safety with Collot-D’Herbois and Carnot. At twelve o’clock, a note arrived from Saint-Just, at last, with the meager lines scrawled down:

 

“ _The conduct with which you treated me tonight has withered my heart… I have decided to open it in its entirety to the Convention.”_

Outraged, Carnot and Collot-D’Herbois screamed, rampaged, soared towards the Convention.

“That bastard!” they roared. “He has played us all!”

 

At the same time, Nino received a written message from Fouché, advising him very briefly.

“The Marshes are with us.”

 

And Nino smiled, because this time, the victory was truly his.

 

 

 

Saint-Just arrived at the Convention at one and waited for everyone to settle in. Collot-D’Herbois toppled into the hall soon afterwards, but his hurry was unnecessary. The session could not start without him: Through a system of rotation, he was the President of the Convention at that point in time. Sweaty and furious, Collot-D’Herbois took his seat behind the high desk and clutched the bell at the corner of the table, shooting murderous glares at Saint-Just, who was now standing at the lectern.

 

In his sky blue clothes, looking magnificent, Robespierre sat in the tribunes and waited, eyes riveted on his most loyal friend, his hands clasped tightly together. Nino was in the galleries. Sho and Jun sat in the last row.

 

Saint-Just began his speech as soon as silence fell:

“I do not belong to any of the factions. I will fight them all.” He said calmly. And his floating voice, was in that instant, mesmerizing and beautiful. A melancholic rhyme, a vibrant cry of nobility. The speech he had in his hands could unite the assembly and restore the harmony they so badly needed, if it was spoken.

 

A wave of applauds interrupted his next sentence, but they were not for him…People were cheering for Billaud-Varenne, who had just entered the room with pompous boorishness. Ignoring the disruption, Saint-Just tried to continue:

“There are people who have tried to make you believe that this government was divided,” he declared carefully. “But that is wrong. There is no division, only a political alteration that I will not proceed to explain.”

 

He stopped for a breath, and with the fleeting second of silence came the violent, merciless end.

 

Tallien jumped up from his seat, and ran up to the podium while shouting to be heard, making both Saint-Just and Robespierre freeze, unprepared. “Objection.” he pushed Saint-Just away from the lectern under everyone’s eyes. He asked for the curtains to be pulled. He asked for the names that Robespierre had failed to pronounce the day before. And when Saint-Just tried to answer, it was now Billaud-Varenne who flew down from his seat to make his own objection. “Objection!” and again, Collot-D’Herbois allowed the protestor to speak. He objected against Saint-Just’s behaviour of the previous night. He claimed that the younger man had played them all in order to keep power to himself and to Robespierre. “Objection!” Barras, Fréron, now, everyone wanted to speak. Jun and Sho were pushed from all directions.

 

“Won’t they let him finish?” Sho cried, completely horrified.

But the crowd had drowned him already. And Robespierre, who jumped up to Saint-Just’s defense, was muffled by the ringing noise of Collot-D’Herbois’s bell. As soon as he spoke, the bell silenced him. He thrashed about, but the tribunes were deafening by now. Within a few minutes, anarchy reigned. Everyone booed. What were they saying? At first, it seemed to the quieter ones like Sho and Jun that they were only blaring out incoherent words. Then, slowly, the crowd’s voices coordinated, and the wave of chants took a distinctive shape.

 

_“Down with the tyrant! Down with the tyrant!”_

 

Saint-Just, at the lectern, stepped back until he hit Collot-D’Herbois’s high desk. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped struggling to speak and his face had become cold, his expression grave and controlled. His eyes found Nino’s above the turbulent crowd, and a flash of understanding traversed his mind when he realized at last what Nino had been trying to achieve. The man had used his loyalty for Robespierre as a tool; used it to prevent him from presenting his speech to Collot-D’Herbois and Carnot when he should have. Nino had known how things would turn out all along, because this was what Fouché had carefully prepared through his crafty, nifty network of information. They had prepared a net of unconquerable, inescapable cowardice to capture them. And now, Robespierre was at everyone’s mercy.

 

The Incorruptible stumbled when someone shouted out under everyone’s applauds:

“I want Robespierre’s decree of arrest to be voted now!”

He tried to speak, but his voice cracked. In the most crucial moment, his eloquence failed him.   

“You monster,” someone shouted at him. “It is Danton’s blood that clogs your throat!”

“Danton?” Robespierre breathed, weak and revolted. “Brigands,” he choked. “Rascals and cowards. If it was Danton whom you wanted to protect, then why did none of you ever defend him back then?”

 

It was such a logical inquiry. But the remains of his voice were buried under the mockery of the unleashed crowd as Tallien suggested for Saint-Just to be arrested as well. The younger man did not protest. Soon, Lebas stood forward and asked to share the blame with Robespierre. Couthon and Augustin, and then all the Robespierrists, were brought to the centre of the room for their detention. In this mess of insults and accusations, Saint-Just seemed to have recovered his calm and had resumed to stand wordlessly beside Robespierre.  Before walking down from the lectern, he had been asked by Collot-D’Herbois to put down his speech onto the table, an order that he had complied with, with indifference, as if a mere spectator to this senseless riot. He had not even read a quarter of it.

 

But the rest of this story is nothing but tragedy. A few hours after their arrest, the Robespierrists, who had been incarcerated in different prisons across town, had been delivered again by the army raised by the mayor Fleuriot, one of Robespierre’s last friends.  They had been brought to the Hôtel de Ville in a hurry, the doors barricaded to fend against the Convention’s own troops.

Not for long.

In the late hours of the night, as nothing happened, the mayor’s troops started to dissipate, out of fear, perhaps, or simply out of boredom. And when Saint-Just, pragmatic to the end, suggested one last time to save Robespierre:

“Let us call for an insurrection!”

The elder man only replied:

“But in whose name?”

 

Saint-Just continued urgently as he gripped his friend by the hand: “In the name of the Convention, Robespierre. The citizens are still your allies, you need to call for their help.”

 

But Robespierre hesitated, when more than ever, self-assurance was of the essence. Soon, the doors were broken down. The Convention’s troops poured in. In the violent chaos which ensued, all the Robespierrists were captured again, the disabled Couthon was pushed down the stairs, Lebas shot himself in the head and Robespierre had gotten his jaw dislocated by a flying bullet coming from his own gun – possibly from a failed attempt to commit suicide, or else simply an accident issued from self-defence. In this painting splashed with blood, Saint-Just’s hands were tied to the doorknob, his clothes still clean, his sculpture-like face still unpolluted by fright.

 

At two o’clock on Thermidor 10, the so-called ‘tyrant’ and his accomplices were finally netted for good.

 

Jun and Sho learned of the details only much later, when posterity had already done its work, when the echoes of Thermidor 9 were already far behind, when the truth had been warped and then straightened again. They then learned of Robespierre’s last hours, sprawled over those two uncomfortable chairs in the Convention’s corridor, his jaw bleeding unstoppably, his teeth smashed and his cheek blown in, an agonizing animal that no one but Saint-Just could truly dare to look at any longer. Him, a tyrant? No, only a scapegoat. A tyrant would have been much more prepared for the villainies of the masses, would have been so much more equipped to face the depravity of those who had nothing but their cowardice to protect themselves. Robespierre had had nothing but his voice, his ideals and others’ utter passiveness to shield himself from attacks. What could he do against guns and brutality and open treachery…?

 

It was also later on that Jun heard of Saint-Just’s extraordinary calm during the last hours before the end. The guards said that the young man had done nothing but stand beside Robespierre, leaning against the wall with his eyes occasionally fixed on the printed French Consititution of ’93, which he had drafted himself, and at other times, staring down at Robespierre with a strange air of gravity, an almost remorseful look.  Then, at one point in time, his eyes had gleamed with emotion; a glow which resembled a sudden spurt of fear. But he did nothing. The truth was that from Tallien’s first opposition onwards,  Saint-Just had seen the futility of the struggle. He had sensed the conclusion of it long before Robespierre. He had realized the extent of the opposition against them and he had accepted to follow his senior into death with peace and tranquillity. So why the sudden fear? It was not the fear of death, no. Saint-Just had always seen it as an old friend. What Saint-Just had feared, for a split second as he looked down at Robespierre’s broken face, was that Nino had been utterly right. There were no more heroes in the Convention and the struggle for liberty was truly over. In fact, there had perhaps never been a fight for freedom to start with. His last speech, which he had never been able to deliver, made no mention of names to condemn or arrest. It was a call for harmony. A call for unison, like he had declared to the traitors face-to-face. Saint-Just had done it perhaps in defiance of Robespierre’s true wishes. But he had done it in a last attempt to save the elder man before it was too late. He had done it as a last resort to finish the grand revolution that they had projected, in the earliest days of this mad crusade.

 

Their chariot left for the guillotine the following morning. People say that out of all the Robespierrists, Saint-Just was the only one to walk up the scaffold without help and without stumbling. Right to his death, he remained dignified. And before being tied up to the slate, he glanced one last time at the wreck of a man whom he had failed to save, that canvas of blood-stained ideals left behind him as he preceded him to the guillotine. He tried to recall the beginning of that genuine letter written back in 1790 on a hot summer afternoon. How did it go again?

 

“You, who support this staggering nation against the torrent of despotism and intrigues; …”

 

_“You…”_

 

 

*

 

 

“Saint-Just, Couthon, the mayor Fleuriot and Robespierre have just been guillotined this morning.”

 

Nino raised his head from his crinkled newspapers without haste, without emotion. It was ten o’clock on Thermidor 10, and Sho had just barged into his room, looking dead serious. The younger man blinked.

 

“Oh,” he said, soon going back to his reading once again.

Sho cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh. That’s all?”

“Well, after all that’s happened inside the Convention yesterday afternoon, you know, this hardly comes as a surprise.”

“I don’t think I was expecting surprise.”

“Then what were you expecting?”

 

He stared at his friend unflappably, and for a while Sho held his gaze, lips pursed as if retaining himself from speaking his thoughts out loud. Then eventually, he shook his head once and sighed deeply.

“Will you speak at the Convention?” he asked instead.

“Yes; few days’ time. I reserved my spot already…” Nino yawned as he flipped a page. “It is time for me to reestablish my position. Now that Robespierre is dead, people shouldn’t think that I am a Robespierrist; it’d be disadvantageous.”

“I see.”

“And you?”

“Me? Nothing.” Sho cleared his throat. “I haven’t asked to speak.”

“Boring. You never do anything.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

 

Nino did not say anything else and only studied his friend wordlessly for a while. For some period of time – he did not know when – it had seemed that they had started to have trouble understanding each other, a problem foreign to them both and dimly irritating. When they spoke, their words did not meet.

 

“I’ll sit next to you guys, tomorrow at the Convention.” he started again. “I feel like I haven’t done that in ages.”

“Oh, it’s fine. We know you were busy.” Sho replied.

A pause.

“I will go back to find Jun then.”

“Yes, you do that. And, I will join you for lunch with Ohno.”

“Right.” Sho smiled a little as he closed the door. “See you.”

 

The younger man only nodded as he folded the newspaper up completely. There was a strange feeling down his stomach, which had started to bubble up at the news of Saint-Just’s and Robespierre’s death; a feeling of “ _That’s all?_ ” tugging on his insides, as if there should have been something more than just plain, final and uninteresting death. He knew where the sensation came from, and what it meant. Until the end, he had never truly won against the youngest member of the Convention; that cold beauty... because Saint-Just had remained equal to himself even in his fall. He had never abandoned Robespierre, and more importantly, he had never acknowledged Nino’s superiority over him, at any point in time.

 

The feeling was irksome, if not infuriating, and Nino rapidly stood up from his chair to walk towards the glass. Outside, the weather was bright and hot, promising like a wonderful rose spread under the sun. Aiba had stopped showing up to his window for a considerable amount of time now.  

 

 

 

*

 

 

“I don’t understand how this charade can still go on.”

“Hush, Jun,” Sho grabbed the younger man’s wrist. “Starting a fuss now is useless.”

 

They walked up to their seats and took place in a neat, orderly line. But Jun found the Convention awfully empty now that all its most prominent members had fallen. The faces of the remaining men were nothing but hollow and grey masks, contaminated by dashes of anxiety and lassitude. Indeed, he was right in asking how such a farce could still go on, for there were no leaders in this assembly anymore, no fire to light the revolutionary torch, no passion to guide them and no determination to drive them on… So who were they trying to trick?

 

Why did the Convention still exist to start with?

 

 

He tried to convince himself that he did not care. In fact, that was almost true, and it had been a while since Jun had stopped feeling angered by those villainies, those petty enmities, those useless sessions. Nowadays, he felt heavy and numb, nothing more.

 

There was a strange phenomenon which had started in the Convention straight after Thermidor 9 and was later named the White Terror. Jun had not understood it at first, but this occurrence rapidly became the conspirators’ final playground. People like Fouché, Barras, Tallien and Carnot had been pleasantly surprised at the death of the Robespierrists, to see that their acts had been welcomed by a universal sigh of relief. At once, they realized that, all along, people had been fatigued by the Terror, so that with Robespierre finally gone, it became easy for them to hide behind the veil of his intransigence, and to blame all the revolution’s failings on this one intractable man. Their acts, initially done out of pure cowardice, had become good deeds issued from benign intentions.

 

And thus, concealed behind this screen of fake righteousness, the conspirators began to tear each other apart; hunting the last Robespierrists, the partisans of the Terror, accusing them of extremism in order to hide their own perfidy. Conscience? They had no time for it; those who were the servants of their own greed could betray any ideal to be on the side of the strongest; and where even that did not work, they were ready to throw their leaders to the galleys, their saviours to the pit.

 

Tallien and Barras shouted accusations to cover their own charges. Fréron was louder than a swaggering rooster. Fouché was in those days, completely silent and more discreet than he had ever been. Carnot screamed like a mad dog.

 

“Those disciples of tyranny must be punished,” he boomed angrily. “they want blood? They want violence? Well, we’ll show them that those who favour the Terror are no longer welcome in this Convention. They should be arrested and condemned to death.”

“Yes! Yes!” came the echoes. “To death. We don’t want the Terror anymore!”

At his seat, Nino could not refrain from laughing out loud.

“Come on, Carnot,” he jeered, fearing nothing. “If you want to denounce a man, do it. But do it fast, we don’t have all day!”

Jun sighed next to him; did any of this matter?

 

The banter continued for a while, until Carnot suddenly turned his red, sweaty face:

“Yes, Nino, you’re right, I’ll denounce my man. And my accusations now go against the deputy Jun Matsumoto, who is sat right next to you at this very moment!”

 

Bewilderment!

 

For the first time since his arrival in the Convention two years ago, Jun found himself the centre of attention, the object of hundreds of judging eyes staring right at him. There was a second of confusion, where people wondered who he was to start with – why, this Matsumoto had never spoken in public; so how could they know whether he was a partisan of the Terror or not? But Carnot laughed sardonically and waved his arms: “Do not be fooled, gents! The deputy you see there is a partisan of the Terror alright. He might be quiet during our sessions, he might look meek, but he is a Robespierrist through and through.”

“Carnot, you’re talking nonsense,” Nino started slowly, but he was baffled despite his apparent calm.

“Me, talking nonsense?” Carnot snorted. “Fool! Jun Matsumoto supports Robespierre. He is the one who was secretly warning that tyrant about the oppositions which led to Thermidor 9. He told me face to face that Robespierre was worth more than all of us combined, when we know pertinently well that the so-called Incorruptible is nothing but a dictator. In fact, deputy Matsumoto has been consistently wishing for Robespierre to kill us all off and to continue his tyranny over France as a whole.”

“No, no, no,” Sho raised his voice until he was shouting, “Carnot, you stop this lie right now!”

“Lie?” the elder man roared. “You were there too! And other witnesses; Tallien! Barras! All will testify!”

 

He pointed at Jun with a manic grin:

“And don’t think I haven’t made my research before making these accusations. In fact, Jun Matsumoto comes from a noble family and he sat in the Girondins’ ranks during Louis Capet’s trial, meaning he is a royalist as well…He has always been on the side of the tyrants. And he will always be. He is a dangerous man, who needs to answer for his crimes.”

“ _Crimes_!” Jun cried out at last, shaking awake from his state of pure astonishment.

“Yes, crimes.” Carnot nodded, before speaking to the assembly as a whole. “Because friends, listen to me! This man, right here, is not only a traitor and a disciple of tyrants…he is a murderer; a man who has slaughtered his own fiancée nine years ago.”

 

A murmur passed through the assembly as Jun, Sho and Nino froze, too flabbergasted to speak. Murderer, people whispered. _Murderer?_ Jun? Sho turned to him with questions in his eyes, but the younger man himself was completely bewildered. Nino looked as if he had just seen a ghost, and soon enough, Carnot called out to all the deputies in the room:

“Yes. That’s the truth! Jun Matsumoto has murdered his own fiancée, long before entering the Convention in the robes of a deputy. Some of you might have heard the story of the murder of Jacqueline de Beauriviers, some of you might not. I only heard it because Ninomiya told me one day over supper – but either way, the problem’s not there.”

“You told him about Jacqueline without me knowing?” Jun glanced at Nino, who for once was helplessly out of words.

“The problem,” Carnot continued, “is that Jun Matsumoto is the one behind her murder and that is all. He is a monster with an insatiable thirst for blood, and if we let him get away with this, he is only going to find a new tyrant to follow, and destroy the semblance of peace that we have just found. Do we want this to happen?”

“No!”  the crowd shouted with revolt. “No, we don’t! We can’t!”

“Let’s arrest him!”

“You have no proof!” thundered Sho.

But the chants were louder than his shattering voice.

“Arrest Jun Matsumoto! Arrest Jun Matsumoto!”

 

“Get out of here,” Nino whispered in Jun’s ear, pushing him, “Now.”

The younger man was too dazed to move at first, but soon the lawyer grabbed him by the elbow and forcefully led him towards the exit under everyone’s taunts, and soon the three of them were outside at last, with Jun finally snapping out of his torpor and dashing away from the Convention before anyone decided to come out and catch him.

 

He disappeared out of sight within a few minutes, and Nino used his hand to lean against the wall, breathing sharply when Sho violently grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

“Why did you do that?” he started, furious. “Why the Hell did you-”

“Calm down,” Nino snapped back, palms raised in a soothing manner. “Calm down. I only told Carnot about Jacqueline because I didn’t think it was important. I had a few drinks that night, and we were talking about random things over supper; it…it was long ago too, before 1793, I didn’t even think he’d remember…”

“Well, he certainly did.” Sho retorted, his face livid.

“What am I supposed to do, then? Write up an apology? As if that’d be of any use to Jun, right now.”

“He is going to be arrested and killed, don’t you understand?!”

“I do!”

“Well, then,” Sho gritted his teeth, smiling with badly dissimulated anger, “what are you going to do about it?”

 

Nino turned, sensing at last that the elder man was heading somewhere with all of this.

 

“What?” he frowned.

“I’m asking you what you intend to do about this. He is going to be arrested if you do not step in during your speech tomorrow. He is our friend, and he is going to be arrested.”

“Yes, I know that he is going to be arrested, thank you very much. I just-”

“You just don’t see what it has to do with you?”

“Well, I…it’s not like it’s my fault, is it?” Nino spluttered, indignation mixing with incomprehension. “It’s not my fault that Carnot’s gotten a personal grudge with him, and it’s not my fault that Jun’s been doing God knows what to support Robespierre, sending him warnings or God knows what-”

“Oh, so that’s all it takes to lose your friendship? As soon as your own interests are at stake, you pull out of the game, is that right?”

“Stop being so childish.”

“Childish,” Sho spat with bitterness, “yes, childish. And when you played with the Indulgents, played with Robespierre, played with Fouché and with all those conspirators just for your own twisted concept of fun, that was not childish at all! I am telling you now, Ninomiya if you do not use your influence to do something about Jun this time, I will never forgive you.”

“What does my influence has to do with this?!”

“Your influence, nothing, but you, everything!”

“What, I…”

“Enough with the innocent act,” Sho cut down, final and painful, “don’t you think I’ve seen enough? I’ve seen you fool DesMoulins, I’ve seen you fool Saint-Just. I’ve seen you fool Robespierre and everyone else. You were all pompous and proud when everyone was under your emprise like marionettes, but now that your own safety is endangered, you try to run away, and just cowardly leave your friend to die. You can’t fool me, Nino; I’ve known you for too long. And I’ve remained idle for too long without stopping you. You’ve gone way too far in your games of power and manipulation.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Nino shouted now, “does it have anything to do with Jun? Or with you? You’ve never done anything, for God’s sake, you have no right to lecture me on my morals. You didn’t even take sides during the 9th Thermidor!”

 

Sho opened his mouth and then closed it again, his gaze flickering momentarily as he stared at his friend. Nino frowned, then the truth struck him.

 

“You,” he muttered dimly. “You did take sides, didn’t you…?”

Silent, Sho looked back at him, the previous glow of guilt changing to anger.

“You were on Robespierre’s side,” Nino’s expression faltered, “you were the ones sending the anonymous letters to Robespierre. You were the one warning him and Saint-Just about the conspirators.”

“So what if I was?”

“ _So what if…_?” Nino exclaimed, furious, “Didn’t you know _my_ position back then? You were my friend; if you really wanted to side with someone, it should have been with me!”

“Yes,” the elder man thundered. “Yes, I was your friend. And you were waist deep in conspiracies, throwing all human values out the window and acting like God; you were mingling with Fouché, breaking the Convention apart, driving people to their deaths and laughing in the face of justice...”

“What justice?” the other one roared back. “Didn’t you know that Saint-Just had his hands around my neck, that he was ready to have me _killed_ -”

“He would have never had you killed had you not started plotting against him!”

 

Nino stopped, the other man’s truths hitting him like a bullet, a drop of poison in a glass of clear water, the pain seeping through him so foreign and so discreet that he did not realise it when his eyes welled up. One cold tear started rolling down his cheeks, and he took a sharp breath to avoid losing himself. For the first time, he was openly guilty of everything.

 

“I am not going to continue this discussion any longer,” Sho declared, his own expression deformed by anger and soreness. “I have never questioned you on your morals before and this is my own fault. But you know what you’ve done, and I will not forgive you if you leave him to die without shame.”

“What do you expect me to say?”  his voice choked on the start of a sob.

“Can I expect you to do anything?”

 

Nino gasped for air. But Sho looked just as pained as him.

“Can I?” he repeated. “When you’ve done absolutely everything in your power to be oh, so unpredictable.” 

 

The younger man tried uselessly to look for an riposte; his head was void and Sho soon swallowed his own remorse.

“There are twenty years of friendship between us.” he said. “If you value any of them, then you know what you should do.”

 

Nino watched him leave the corridor with helpless inertia, his body not obeying him when he tried to stop the elder man from going. The things Sho had said were cruel; the things he had said were true. He knew what Sho wanted him to do the next day and the thought of it frightened him to death, because none of the tricks he was used to practice would be of any good this time. For once, he was not one step ahead of anyone. He had been pulled back to the same level as everybody else...He was ordinary.

 

And being ordinary was a petrifying feeling.

 

 

*

 

 

The same night, Nino came back to his apartment with all fear changed to pure wrath. Ohno was home and inquired, when he slammed the door shut:

“Are you alright?”

“What do you think?” the younger man barked, forgetting all self-control. “That bastard...”

“Who?”

 

Nino refused to answer at first, rummaging through his papers before storming out of his bedroom again. He saw Ohno peering strangely at him and glared:

“Don’t you have things to do?”

“I just finished the washing.”

“Well, then wash again.”

Ohno blinked and stayed immobile, staring blankly as the younger man charged into the living room and delved into the higher bookshelves. Because no further word came in, he soon followed Nino to the other room, and scratched his cheek hesitantly while the other man continued his incomprehensible fumbling.

Ohno leaned his head against the doorframe. “Did something bad happen at the Convention today?”

“Ohno, just shut it, will you?” Nino cringed. “I am not in the mood.”

“I just wanted to help.”

“There’s nothing you can help with. Unless you can become a lawyer overnight and convince the entire Convention that Jun Matsumoto is not a God damned murderer and a traitor, when you know pertinently well that everyone else there already wants him dead.”

“Jun is accused of murder?”

The lawyer slammed his fist against the table, making Ohno bat his eyelids and pull back. He wondered if he had said anything wrong. Nino only fumed.  

“Yes, Jun’s on the verge of getting arrested.” he grunted. “And now Sho Sakurai is being an unreasonable bastard who wants me to go to the Convention and persuade all of them not to do so. As if his fate was something I could change…As if I was some kind of God…!”

 

He suddenly stopped and rubbed the skin between his eyes, scrunching his nose to shake off the headache which had taken over. He felt like he was about to explode; and Ohno was not helping, with all that obnoxious care of his and that altruist interest. No, he was not helpful at all; only irksome, redundant and exasperating. He found it infuriating that Ohno never knew anything and yet, accepted everything like it was normal. How could anyone be so desperately naïve all the time? How could he always be above everything?

 

“Nino…” the elder man soon started.

“I said, shut it,” he broke, hammering his frustration down. “Is that so hard to understand? I don’t need you and your care; it doesn’t help! I am waist deep in Jacqueline de Beauriviers’ affair. Had she not died, we wouldn’t be here. Jun wouldn’t be in this damn mess to start with. _I_ wouldn’t be in this dead end either!”

Ohno blinked at him.

“I don’t understand why you’re so angry.” he remarked softly. “It’s not like you’re the one getting arrested.”

“I’m the one who has to pull out Jun’s ass out of this mess…”

“But don’t you want to? I thought Jun was your friend.”

“Ohno you’re obnoxious and preposterous.” Nino growled and circled around the sofa. “Nothing, _nothing_ is that easy.”

 

He stopped. Then with a sudden storm of temper, threw the desk lamp onto the floor, smashing it to pieces. He grabbed the china next, tore the carnations to pieces, trudged and rampaged about the room until everything was but chaos and debris. His living room was a solitary, derelict battlefield. Ohno was paralysed in the doorway.

 

“He is punishing me,” Nino shouted, manic at the thought of his friend and wondering if he could still call him that way. “He knows that I am forced to speak at the Convention now to save Jun, and that this is going to end up with my failure…And he is forcing me into this pinch because he wants to punish me in the cruellest way possible. He wants me to pay.”

 

Ohno watched him silently with his innocent tadpole eyes, unsure that he had understood everything correctly. It was so hard to grasp the situation when the younger man only talked in half-sentences. He felt like half of the full problem was still being withheld in the depths of Nino’s heart, and there was nothing he could do to relieve the other man of his unspeakable burden. Nino was leaning his forehead against the cooling window when Ohno finally dared to speak up:

“Maybe he only wants the best for you. Maybe this hurdle is the only way for you to move on from Jacqueline’s affair and to repent from it – whatever might have happened back then.”

 

Nino did not reply at once, and Ohno took this as an encouraging sign:

 

“Maybe trying to defend Jun during your speech tomorrow will enable you to turn the page and start anew once and for all. Maybe that’s the best way for everyone to close up Jacqueline’s case and to face the truth.” he fumbled when the younger man moved, “though of course, I’m not saying that you had anything to do with Ms Jacqueline’s death to start with, but-”

“No, you're right." Nino interrupted coldly. "Sho does want me to repent. But he is wrong and you are wrong. My guilt has nothing to do with Jacqueline de Beauriviers' death. Nothing at all."

"I don't understand..."

"I have nothing to do with Jacqueline de Beauriviers's death, you hear?" he trembled all over. "My guilt is elsewhere.”

Ohno, who had tried his best to smile until now, felt lost again and hesitated.

“What do you mean?”

Then, Nino turned around, his eyes searing holes into the elder man’s soul. All of a sudden, Ohno lost the will to smile.

“What guilt are you talking about?”

“Ohno,” the other man began, but halted, looking so worn-out and heavy that his skin appeared almost translucent under the pale moonlight.

 

He looked down at the floor and flicked his gaze up again, and Ohno saw the truth before he spat it out.

“My guilt,” he mumbled, “is the guilt of having killed your family.”

 

It seemed a bit ridiculous when Nino said it this way. And yes, perhaps that was what it was supposed to be – a ridiculous prank. After all, had the lawyer not always been sarcastic and heartless with his sense of humour, and had his jokes not always been so very difficult for Ohno to understand? Had Nino not always called him an idiot for believing everything he said without question? Had he not always looked down on him like he was a hopeless lamb, or some sort of animal that would die if you did not take care of him, and not a decent human being who could stand by his side as his equal?

 

Had Nino not always treated him with pity instead of compassion, and contempt instead of love?

 

This time, Ohno was the one who stared at Nino like he was not human.

“You-”

He wavered. He tried to deny it. It was too cruel.

“You wouldn’t have…”

“I sent people to do it for me,” Nino’s voice was conclusive. “I sent people whom I had bribed to your bakery on the night of the 28th June 1785, ordered them to steal everything they saw and to burn the shop down to ashes-”

“No,” Ohno shook his head, “Stop.”

“I asked them to kill anyone who was present so there’d be no witnesses. I asked them to make as many casualties as possible and to pillage to their heart’s content because bakers had it better than anyone else in town anyways. Had you been there that night, they would have killed you too.”

“No.” Ohno broke, his hands tightening into painful fists. In front of him, Nino looked sickly, exhausted, but he was not lying. The fire in his eyes was real and he was telling the truth.

 

Within seconds, Ohno’s emotions evaporated and he felt nothing. His heart was numb.

 

“Why?” he muttered at last.

“Because that was the secret business I was running back then for my own benefits,” Nino explained excruciatingly. “After becoming a lawyer in Paris I was nothing. But I knew I needed more than just revolts in order to become _something_ in the political chain. I needed a revolution, and the revolution was not going to come fast enough on its own. To speed it up, I needed chaos. And the best way to achieve chaos was to cause social unrest; crimes, protests, scandals…I used my connections with nobles such as the Duke of Orléans to bribe people from lower backgrounds. I hired soldiers – brainless ones from the French Guards sometimes, who weren’t scared to use violence without questioning – to pillage wealthy households and assault luxurious carriages. And then, when that wasn’t shocking enough to the public, I turned to the humbler Parisian families and sent those bribed soldiers to destroy their homes; bakers, accountants and shopkeepers alike.”

 

Ohno listened, not really here, but not really there either.

 

“The fact that your family was one of the victims was just a coincidence. You were just unlucky, that’s all.”

“ _Unlucky_?”

“I didn’t care for the identity of those who died. Only my goal mattered.”

“But you killed real, actual people,” Ohno whispered, “those people you hired…they killed other human beings.”

“I…”

“My children were three years old.” he said.

 

Nino opened his mouth. He shook his head. Then, Ohno moved forward and brought his leg up the younger man’s ribcage. He kneed him twice. He threw the younger man to the ground. He seized him by the collar and punched him another two times in the face, once on the left side and once on the right. Nino fell again, and did not get up. He was covering his bleeding cheek; a black bruise was slowly forming beneath his eye and he was coughing and spluttering. After a minute of immobility, Ohno kneeled down and silently took the other man’s hand in his, making him look up into his eyes.

 

“I hit you four times today,” he eventually whispered, and his voice was now calm and soft as on ordinary days. “I won’t do it anymore.”

 

Through trembling eyelids, Nino looked at him, his vision slightly blurred when he tried to focus. His face was swelling up, sore and aching, but his eyes still glowed with a outlandish light, in the dimness of the room. He shuddered when Ohno gently placed his hand on his cheek and murmured:

“Ten years ago, I would have wanted to break you for this, but now, you are already broken.”

Nino breathed through his nose, emitting a low whizzing sound when blood trickled down to his upper lip.

“It is not my role to make people atone for their past,” Ohno shook his head, his gaze still astonishingly peaceful.

“Are you going to leave me?” the younger man lowered his shaking gaze.

“No, I am going to stay and watch you grow. You are speaking at the Convention tomorrow."

 

Nino raised his head.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with what I have done.”

“On the contrary.” Ohno smiled. “Isn’t that what Sho meant for you to do?”

The damaged lawyer hid his face, shuddering again. “He doesn’t know what I’ve done to you. Only Saint-Just has discovered my past inadvertently, once, but he is not here to testify anymore… Sho thinks I had something to do with Jacqueline’s death. But this isn’t true; I know nothing of that woman’s case.”

“Does that stop you from speaking in Jun’s defence?”

“Speaking in Jun’s defence will not change the fact that I have murdered your family.”

 

To Nino’s surprise, Ohno smiled. It amazed him, because his smile was just another sign that the elder man had already taken a step back from himself; something that Nino had never been able to do. To discard his own woes and see things from a different perspective...Perhaps, if he finally learned to do that, helping Jun would not seem such a hard task to do, after all.

 

“You shouldn’t be smiling,” Nino soon mused.

“Why not?”

“I’ve done too many bad things to you already.”

“This isn’t about me; not anymore,” the elder man said gently. “It’s about those unspoken things that happened to you in a distant past and of which I am unaware, those unspoken things that made you more damaged than all of us combined. It is why I could never leave your side – it is why I still can’t leave you now. But I think acting for Jun’s sake will definitely help you out of it, and I’m hoping that you will at least try.”

 

Something in Ohno’s soft voice triggered an emotion in him, a sensitive string he had forgotten and tried to bury deep within himself. He shivered, holding his swollen face, still a subsiding frame on the carpet.

 

“I am not courageous enough.”

“That’s a lie,” Ohno shook his head, “you are the man who settled the prelude of an entire revolution.”

 

He looked down and shrugged.

 

“What would one righteous, life-saving speech mean to a man like you?”

 

 

 

 

 

In a distant past a young boy sat in the corner of a schoolyard, reading alone. The school had a table set up in the middle of the enclosure with benches on either side of it and he liked to stay there during break time. But no one else did. At least, not when he was also there.

 

He was ten years old and his father was the mayor of the neighbouring commune. Because of this, other students were jealous of his wealth and his fancy clothes, his new jabots and nice cufflinks. They tended to ignore him and isolate him after classes. But he had one friend, a ten years old boy called Stéphane who brought him homemade gingerbreads and baby breath flowers to decorate his notebooks. They walked together on the road after school and admired the warm sun of the countryside. Stéphane showed him his favourite poems. He gave Stéphane new gloves and nice brands of hair powder.  Then one day, his father was made redundant. His right-hand man had tricked him and blamed him for a fraud of which the mayor had absolutely no knowledge. Because of this, the boy’s family became poor from that day onwards. Stéphane stopped walking with him after school. He stopped bringing him gingerbreads too.

 

He was fourteen years old and studying in Louis-Le-Grand on a scholarship. People in the boarding school mocked him for his past; they mocked him for his poverty; they mocked him for his destitute father. In his second year, he received a letter from his mother telling him that his father had died of illness – he was not surprised. Since losing his position, the patriarch had never been healthy again. But despite everything, he felt sadness and resentment. He hated his comrades and he hated the world. The other students offered him no condolences. As Christmas approached, an upperclassman came to him after grammar class and handed him a copy of a book he had always wanted to read. “I had an extra copy at home,” he said. “People from Arras should help each other out.” His name was Sho Sakurai and his teeth were too big for his face, giving him a daffy look. The boy, who was now a teenager, waited for the day when this companion would leave him too.

 

He was eighteen and somehow, Sho Sakurai was still there. They wanted to study law together – or rather, Sho wanted to do law and had convinced him to follow his footsteps. In Arras, they had managed to join the members of an intellectual association named the Rosati. In it they met people who exchanged wistful poems, challenged one another on philosophical topics, chatted and dreamed of politics. They met a romantic lawyer named Maximilien Robespierre; they met a humble physics teacher named Joseph Fouché. And then as their connections increased, the two of them got introduced to people who would later call themselves the Jacobins. One of those activists seduced the boy’s elder sister. He made her believe in marriage, he made her see dreams and when she fell for him, wanting more, tramped them under his dirty boots. The boy, who had thought that he had finally found a place to rest, realized that this would never be his harbour. No matter where he went, no matter where he stopped, there would never be a place that he would call home.

 

And this boy, who had forgotten how to trust anyone, now stepped shakily to the lectern of the Convention, facing the tribunes of deputies with no speech in hand. His lips were like sandpaper when he opened them and stared at the hundreds of faces below him. At the front row, Sho Sakurai had his eyes riveted on him.  The man still had too many teeth for his face and he still looked a little daft, no matter how much you studied him. But now Nino found those features endearing. He found them familiar and he did not feel ready to lose them just yet. He did not feel disposed to let go of this companion who had been so strangely loyal to him despite their constant divergence of opinions, and who had been so unafraid to tell him off whenever he thought he was wrong. If Sho was not by his side to teach him right from wrong, where would he be?

 

Somewhere above his head, Collot-D’Herbois rang his bell:

 

“Ninomiya, you have the floor.”

 

Nino took a sharp breath. He was frozen on the spot.

 

For a second or two, he stood and did not say a word, unable to get a single sound out of his parched throat. The president of the session furrowed his eyebrows.

 

“Ninomiya?”

“Yes, just give me a minute,” he retorted with gritted teeth.

“We don’t have all day,” Carnot mocked, imitating the younger man’s own words, and Tallien laughed next to him. Fouché was more silent than death.

 

Nino exhaled and closed his eyes momentarily. He then looked down very carefully and noticed Jun’s hidden form by the exit, draped in ordinary and used clothes, his face concealed beneath a felt hat.  The younger man was staring at him expectantly, lips parted. Nino shuddered and diverted his gaze, looking at the galleries instead. Since the start of the Terror, people had stopped coming to the Convention as often as before. But now, two forms were very much visible beneath the white colonnades. It was Ohno who was leaning against the railing, with a scowling Aiba by his side.  The elder man met his gaze and smiled.

 

Nino gasped out loud.  

 

“I originally asked to speak to give my opinion on the Robespierrists’ deaths,” he started very unsteadily. “But I don’t think that is of utmost importance anymore…Something has happened yesterday, which has shaken me terribly."

 

He breathed: "A man has been accused, and I now ask for his fate to be amended.”

 

Nino paused and waited for the room to settle down a bit before continuing in a slightly firmer voice:

“One of us has demanded for the arrest and death of Jun Matsumoto. But I submit that this is not only unnecessary, but also utterly unjust. Have we not decided that the Terror should end, and baseless accusations stop? Why is it that even after the merciless persecutors’ deaths, we can still not be exempt from such senseless, hollow and unreasonable allegations?”

Instantly, Nino saw Carnot raise his finger from the corner of his eye, and thus, continued swiftly before the other man could interrupt:

“Carnot has submitted that Jun Matsumoto is a murderer, but this is a lie. He has dared to say that I was the one who provided him with the necessary information, but the material he denoted was nothing but mere gossip, unrolled on a mindless, whimsy night of indulgence and over-drinking. Can anyone become a murderer just because of some drunk person’s assertion? I do not think so.”

 

As the assembly started to murmur, he grabbed the edge of the podium with his clammy hands and boomed:

“If it is someone’s death which you need to conclude the Terror once and for all, then I ask for Jun Matsumoto to be spared and my life to be taken instead.”

 

Wide-ranging astonishment. His past allies started to shake their heads and shout their disagreement, while Carnot stood up with shock and opened his mouth to protest. As the chairman asked for all them to calm down, Nino grabbed the podium tightly and shut his eyes. His heart was thrashing in his ribcage.

 

“But my death,” he said, “my death will be but meagre justice to all of you. Beautiful justice indeed, that which has an innocent man put to death – Yes, an innocent man! for that is what Jun is, just as much as I am. Slaughter us if you want, you would kill two representatives with pure hearts, when in the meantime the Convention still festers with traitors – the real traitors, the real deceitful culprits worthy of death; yes, the real culprits – like Joseph Fouché!”

 

As soon as he said that name, the entire room’s attention switched to the physics teacher in question, as if surprised to see him – that pale man with his sick countenance, for how long had he been sitting there? The whispers spread across the hall like a flame. With a furious smile, Nino pointed at the ashen man with his shaking finger:

“Why do we waste time prosecuting the small fries who have done nothing wrong, when amidst us sits the deputy of Nantes, responsible for more than a thousand deaths in Lyon? Is it this easy to forget that this man has got a mass genocide on his hands? That this man, who now sits quietly like a lamb, is in fact a wolf in disguise who has proclaimed his extremist views on every roof, once?” he shouted. “Nonsense! This Convention is ruined if crimes like those are left to rot in the darkest corners of our archives. Collot-D’Herbois and Fouché, who were responsible for the destruction of Lyon, are the only ones who can rightfully be accused of murder in this present assembly. I ask for this fact to be acknowledged and dealt with. I ask for Fouché to face his past and atone for it!”

 

He raised his hands, his voice breaking as he appealed:

 

“I ask for justice! Or the end of this second Terror!”

 

In an instant, the entire hall resuscitated and turned into a concert of acclamations, a tornado of hooting, fists beating in the air in the pale, uneasy Fouché’s direction. The physics teacher recoiled at the undesired attention, flinching on his seat with an uncomfortable rictus. Carnot, too glad that the accusations were not turned against him, joined the crowd and chanted for Fouché’s arrest as fervently as if it had been his own idea. Cowards were still cowards. In the middle of this new-born folly, Jun had already been forgotten.

 

“End of the session!” Collot-D’Herbois called, his face a pallid mask of uneasiness. “The debates are adjourned; end of the session!”

 

And Sho darted out of his seat, Jun dashed out from his hiding spot at the same time. The two of them snatched Nino before he could come down from the lectern and caught him in their arms.

 

The youngest deputy’s eyes were gleaming with emotion.

“You did it,” he shook, “you made it possible…You really made it.”

Nino was still trembling, his forehead damp with sweat, despite the acclamations. He saw gratefulness in Jun’s eyes, which he knew he did not deserve, and then he saw something else. Something like release, something like liberation and reconciliation. For the first time, it seemed like the younger man had seen something worthwhile in the Convention. Momentarily, he forgot the anxiety of abandoning every lie behind to face a world that he did not know. If only to see feats like this, it was surely worth the while. Sho was passionate too. His usual composure had been forgotten, and he now apologized to Nino with both sincere relief and pride. He smiled. He laughed. And Nino blinked, his eyelids fluttering because he did not know what to say.

 

But soon, he saw Ohno arriving towards him. And he tried to talk, he desperately tried to open his mouth to say something to the elder man. He saw him smiling, and before he could smile back, two arms had already locked themselves around his neck, chokingly warm, shockingly frantic. And he gasped because they were Aiba’s arms; it was Aiba’s tall body hugging him wordlessly like a friend. And when he felt himself floating back to consciousness once again, it was only to realise that he had tears in his eyes.

 

He tried not to cry. Outside the Convention, the sky seemed clearer than ever before; and at last, he thought, he could allow himself to turn the page.

 

 

 

 

 

The things that happened next, no one found them significant enough to jot down. And indeed, there were neither grand deeds, nor remarkable feats after then.  The time of goliaths was finally over. In 1795, the Club of Jacobins was dissolved, the Convention met its end and the Revolution, with all its past splendour and ancient aureoles of glory, slumped into the sand of reminiscence. Joseph Fouché survived – it was his area of expertise. After Nino’s last pique he endured people’s accusations with a low profile, and before long, the Convention became too broken to care about him anymore. For some time, he was forgotten, but it would only be a matter of years before he resurfaced from his ashes. The man who would one day become Napoléon’s most needed subject had not yet shown all his talents.

 

But it was 1795 and the times were low. The Revolution was gone, windswept, and the town of Paris slowly recovered, its suburbs trying to live again like a young child learns to walk. Some of the survivors of those tempestuous years now met and reminisced about the past, melancholic and scarred. Amongst them, LaFayette and Siéyès were in a café to list the dead.

 

“I know that most of my friends are gone,” Siéyès declared very slowly. “They talked a little too much.”

“Some of mine are still alive and well,” the other man replied, breaking some of his bread into crumbs to feed the birds who had come to their table’s feet. “I know that Ninomiya Kazunari has gone abroad, he has retired from the political scene once and for all and is seeking solace in Italy with an intimate friend of his.”

“So I heard. But was there not another one whom you were close to? A deputy from noble origins-”

“Matsumoto Jun,” LaFayette smiled sadly. “I heard he left somewhere with Sakurai Sho. They are writing a book of some sort, I think.”

“Good for them.”

“I haven’t heard from them for a very long time.”

 

Siéyès shrugged and made the coffee swirl in his cup, humming lightly as he leaned backwards. Beside them, the road reverberated with conversations, words ricocheting against the walls of buildings to form an incoherent veil of noise. It was the sound of citizens learning to speak their mind again. It was the sound of catastrophes and errors being forgotten.

 

“Tell me, LaFayette, there was something I have always been quite curious about,” Siéyès mused, “what _did_ happen that night of the 28 th June 1785? No one ever broke the case of that slain noblewoman, did they?”

“Well, it is a long story and I’m ashamed to be the one telling it,” LaFayette lowered his gaze. “I have heard the truth only recently, you see, from a man who used to work in the National Guards under my orders, but originally came from the French Guard’s regiments. It goes a little bit like this: A man – a soldier – gets called out at night by his superior named _de la Motte_ , and receives the order to kill a female prisoner that is being held in a dungeon of the French Guard’s garrison. The Colonel affirms that this woman is condemned to death for a very serious crime, but never specifies which crime it is that she must pay for and insists that her death be as quiet as possible. He asks the soldier to kill her at night, and then throw her body outside Paris, into the woods. The soldier hesitates. He smells something fishy, he feels unsecure. He refuses to obey at first, but the superior reminds him that if he does not obey, he will be dismissed from the regiment, just like his disgraced brother had been before him. Ashamed and mortified, the soldier obeys, gets drunk to be brave, and slays the woman himself.”

“Gruesome.”

“The rest is but misfortune. The body was supposed to be taken all the way down to the forest in the countryside, but mid-way through Paris the man heard voices across the Louis XVI bridge and thought that people would perhaps come his way. In his drunken state, he panicked at the thought of being seen, and pushed the body into the waters. The soldier’s name was Aiba Masaki. The female prisoner’s name was Jacqueline de Beauriviers.”

“Very unfortunate, all this,” Siéyès commented tranquilly, “and I suppose that the soldier himself never realized the consequences of his acts?”

“No, and never will. Just like the woman’s unfortunate fiancé, who was my old and soft-hearted friend in the tumultuous years of the Revolution will never know the truth about this affair. But perhaps, it is better this way.”

“You are very right.”

“And you, Siéyès, what did you do during all those terrible years at the Convention?”

“Me?” Siéyès smiled, “Oh, I lived.”

 

He drank a sip of his coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

_The Third Estate_

**End.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Honestly, if you've managed to read everything and arrived at this note, eehhhh...thank you. And thank you again. haha. This fic was really just me pouring out my French Revolution feels and trying out a different style, and it ended up being so God damn long... I am really not expecting anyone to read it at all. But if you did manage to get to the end, even while skipping parts, then thanks for the effort! All the awards for you!  
> Robespierre, Saint-Just and Fouché are my little babies so I am glad I managed to insert them somewhere at last hehe. Hope that this story made the FR at least a little bit intriguing, because really, the French Revolution is just a big pile of awesomeness.
> 
> Credits: I mostly used the following works for references on the facts and the actual speeches:  
> Joseph Fouché - biography by Stefan Zweig (I really recommend that one. It's short and amazing.)  
> French Revolution 'Aux Armes, citoyens!' by Max Gallo  
> and Saint-Just biography by Bernard Vinot. 
> 
> Again, thank you infinitely much for reading, and I hope you'll have a wonderful day!


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